Ferocious, Loyal, and Absolutely in Control: Sarah Krevens on Caregiving for the Sister Who Refused to Be Defined by Cancer

Rachel was fourteen months older than Sarah. She was a litigator; ferocious, loyal, deeply private, and absolutely determined not to let stage four metastatic colon cancer define her. When she got the call after her colonoscopy, she knew exactly who to call first: her sister.

And Sarah knew exactly what to do.

In this episode of The Bridges Between Us, CaringBridge board chair Sarah Krevens shares the story of the two-and-a-half-year journey she walked alongside her sister Rachel - as her voice, her advocate, her fellow wig-try-on partner, and the person who read every CaringBridge post aloud to Rachel before hitting publish, because it was Rachel's story. Not Sarah's.

She talks about creating two separate CaringBridge pages - one for family and friends, one for Rachel's work colleagues - to honor a woman who worked in the courtroom almost until the end of her life and wanted to keep those worlds carefully separated. She shares the fruitcake post, the wig shopping photos, the rhinestone-decorated chemo bag, and a Christmas trip to England where a nephew-in-law's secret proposal was the one thing Rachel was allowed to know that no one else did.

And she talks about what it was like to slowly take over the narrating when Rachel could no longer be part of the writing, and the community needed a way to say goodbye.

Send us your comments. We'd love to hear from you.