Author Spotlight
Morgan Christian
On the wall in junior Tori Holt’s room hangs a picture frame containing three pairs of her grandmother’s Chanel sunglasses. They are red, white, bejeweled–and stylishly over-sized.
Below the sunglasses, on Tori’s dresser, is a wooden box containing pieces of her mom’s jewelry: silver hearts strung into bracelets, a pearl necklace, rings with crosses cut into them.
Under normal circumstances, Tori’s mom would still be wearing her jewelry, and her grandmother, her sunglasses. But it was under extraordinary circumstances that these two women were taken away from her when she was in seventh grade. Within months of each other, they each died of the same disease: ovarian cancer. In rare cases, ovarian cancer is genetically linked. But in Tori’s family, this was not the case. Her mom and her grandmother were from opposite sides of her family.
Now, their accessories make up a special place of memories in Tori’s room.
On Sunday, Tori will honor both of them at the sixth annual Ovarian Cancer Whisper Walk hosted by the Spelman Medical Foundation. It will be her fifth time walking.
Every time, she cries. Her tears don’t stem from grief, but the hope that the women at the race, by educating themselves, won’t have to go through what her family did
“I cry usually before it starts or when I look at the wall of memories,” Tori said. “It’s really special to see all these people raising awareness and supporting the cause.”
***
Tori’s grandmother made it a point to take her and her mom on special trips. When Tori was in first grade, they went to Disney World and ate breakfast with Disney princesses. In second grade, it was Chicago. At the American Girl Store, they had “an extremely VIP time” because Tori’s grandmother, true to form, knew the head of the store.
But in sixth grade, during the summer of 2006, it was just the two of them. They went to New York City and stayed in the Marriott Marquis on Times Square. They saw “Beauty and the Beast” and “The Lion King” on Broadway, as well as the Radio City Christmas Spectacular starring the Rockettes.
“It was a blast to be around her,” Tori said. “She always knew how to make me smile and how to have a good time.”
Although Tori’s grandmother traveled often with her disease, a few months after their return from New York, she began to lose her eight year battle.
“You could definitely see her starting to get weaker,” Tori said. “She was much thinner. Her face started to cave in.”
She died Sept. 25.
Because of her young age, Tori didn’t understand what had happened to her grandmother at first. But when it sank in that she wouldn’t have any more “Gran and Tori” dates, it hit her: no more shopping sprees, no more movies together, no more special meals at Olive Garden.
***
Tori’s mom was her best friend. She accompanied her daughter on long nature walks. She played tag with her inside the house. As her Girl Scout troop leader, she once started a game of mattress surfing down a lodge ramp at Camp Timber Lake in Stillwell.
Every weekend, Tori and her mom did a lot of what Tori calls “unnecessary shopping” at Target and Deals on 75th and Metcalf. Simply happy to spend time together, they would see how far they could stretch $30 between the two stores. On one expedition, they bought paper towels, brownie mix, and a couple of grow-your-own boyfriends.
“She loved giving crazy gifts to her friends” Tori said. “I thought she was the most perfect person in the world.”
In August of 2004, this perfect person was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in the third stage, meaning that the cancer had spread to either her abdominal lining or her lymph nodes. She had a 30-50 percent chance of surviving the next five years.
Tori had just started fifth grade.
“I was sitting in the cafeteria [of the hospital] eating Ben and Jerry’s while my parents talked with the doctor,” Tori said. “Then I finished and went back up [to the examination room], and they told me she had this thing called cancer. I didn’t know what that was.”
Her mom was scheduled for a surgery to remove all tumors, followed by chemotherapy to kill the rest of the cancer cells. After months of treatment, she was in remission by the end of 2005.
But by the end of 2006, there were signs that the cancer had come back. Tori’s mom was always exhausted, and always sick. She was barely able to walk.
“She wasn’t the person I had known when I was little,” Tori said.
The cancer had swiftly become terminal. In early February of 2007, Tori’s mom moved into the Hospice House. She died early in the morning of February 26.
Her family got the call at 5:07 a.m. The ringing phone woke Tori up.
“I went downstairs and I knew. I didn’t have to talk to my dad,” Tori said. “Then I went upstairs and lay on my bed. I was shocked.”
The last time Tori had talked to her mom was the night before she died.
“She wasn’t really with it,” Tori said. “I held her hand, told her I got a new haircut, and told her I loved her.”
***
Tori participated in her first Whisper Walk right after her mom’s cancer returned for a second round. Her mom, constantly in treatment at St. Luke’s Hospital, had heard about the race through a nurse. Together they signed up.
“It was good to have that time with her…to have a break from everything and be able to walk.”
But after another race together in 2007, the next year, Tori had to look elsewhere for walking partners. She asked three of her friends to accompany her. That number grew to seven in 2009.
This year, with the option to form a team, the group has grown a little bit more. Tori made announcements in her U.S. History, Photo II and Choir classes, telling classmates about the walk and giving them her e-mail address. Ten people have given her definite yes’s.
Ovarian cancer is known as the silent cancer because it often becomes deadly before any symptoms show up. But Tori’s message about it has progressively become louder.
“It’s for you moms, your sisters, your children,” Tori said. “It’s for the women in your life with a potential risk.”
Looking to the picture of her mom that hangs next to her grandmother’s framed sunglasses, Tori knows her mom would approve of her plans to become a nurse.
“I feel like she’s here watching,” Tori said. “She’s here. I know she is.”
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