She’s everywhere … always

MOREHEAD CITY —
Kathleen Templeton is everywhere.
She reveals herself in her daughter’s smile — in the beautiful, caring young woman she’s growing into.
She comes through her son’s car speakers — riding the lyrics of songs he hasn’t been able to listen to all the way through for close to a decade.
She lives on in photographs and memories shared by loved ones on holidays and other special occasions.
And the weight of her absence is felt as the family from which she was taken meets milestone after milestone.
It has been more than twelve years since breast cancer claimed a woman remembered by those who knew her as the kind of person who never met a stranger.
But if you speak to her son, Chase, about her death, you might think it happened yesterday.
“It doesn’t feel like it’s been that long,” he said, wiping a tear from his eye. “It really doesn’t.”
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A young man prepares to enter the church where his parents were married so many years before.
But this moment belongs to him — and to the woman who stole his heart.
He knows that his mother won’t be looking up at him as he and his future wife exchange their vows — that this particular day would be, for many reasons, among the most emotional of his life.
And then, just before he and his father prepare to take their places by the altar, Kathleen makes her presence felt.
“There was a moment right before I walked out into the church where I’m standing there with the preacher and my dad … and everything just hit me all at once. It brought tears to my eyes,” Chase said, choking up. “It’s a weird feeling, but you take it in and accept it and remember it. That’s a memory you should never forget.
“That’s why I have pictures of (me and my wife) standing at the front of the church — at the altar — getting married … and right next to it, a picture of my parents in the same spot doing the same thing.”
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It was Easter weekend 2005 and Chase and some friends were enjoying Spring Break — a welcome vacation from morning classes and impending exams.
But when he called home for permission to extend his stay by a few nights, he could sense in his father’s reaction that something was wrong.
“I told him I was thinking about staying and he said, ‘No. You’d better come home,’” Chase said.
So he made his way back to Lynchburg, Va. — thinking, all the while, about what had gotten to his father.
The news his parents delivered when he got there had never even entered his thoughts.
“As soon as I got home, they told me,” Chase said. “It was a complete shock. It was like, ‘How in the hell can this happen? My mom is probably one of the nicest and best people in the world. How in the hell can this happen to her?’”
Kathleen had been diagnosed with breast cancer.
“From there, it was a long struggle,” Chase said.
After finals, the young man moved back home.
He wanted to be there for his family as Kathleen endured chemotherapy.
And he found himself amazed by her courage — and the support that was flooding in from across the country.
“We got cards, all kinds of stuff, from people all over,” Chase said. “It was amazing how many people she touched in her life. She said she could feel them praying for her.”
By the fall, he had returned to North Carolina State University.
And he pledged Chi Psi Fraternity — a process that took his mind off of everything that was unfolding back in Virginia.
But Chase wasn’t the only one with positive things happening in his life.
Kathleen’s health was improving and within several months, a clear MRI had her family celebrating.
Chase had no way of knowing that his mother’s battle was far from over — that the following fall, he would make another long drive to Lynchburg.
“She was in the hospital with all the IVs attached to her and everything and I had talked to her the day before. I talked to her on the phone and she told me she wanted me in Lynchburg right now. The next day, I packed up and I went home. I don’t think she actually thought I was going to be there.
“I walked into her room and just seeing her face light up as soon as I walked in … just lying in that hospital bed with her, knowing she was in so much pain, that’s probably something I’ll never forget.”
But he still clung to the hope that somehow, she would be OK.
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Kathleen died Sept. 20, 2006.
She was 47 years old.
Chase remembers the funeral as though it just occurred.
“I remember this vividly and anytime someone goes through a tragedy, if they come to me for advice, I remember this quote that one of my parents’ friends told me at the funeral,” Chase said. “He said, ‘The pain never goes away. It just gets less over time. That pain, it’s not necessarily that you get used to it, but it just sort of dulls. But you will constantly think about that person and the memories and those things that bring them to your mind.’”
Over the years, the 30-year-old has found those words to be true.
He hurts when it’s time to put up Christmas decorations or when a certain song comes on the radio.
He avoids particular foods and places because he just can’t bring himself to endure the pain.
“There are certain things I can’t even do anymore — certain songs I just can’t listen to. You know, something will come on the radio and it brings tears to my eyes and I’ll have to turn the station. That’s never going to go away,” he said. “And the holidays are hard because it just doesn’t feel the same without her there — to decorate and bring that certain part of the cheer that’s been missing since she passed away.”
And he finds himself talking to her when he finds himself in need of a calming influence.
“When something happens and you get a little down or depressed — something’s going on in your life — I’ll sit there and stand in front of the mirror or lie in bed just talking to her in my head,” Chase said. “I’m telling her that I hope I’m living up to her expectations of me and I hope I’m making her proud.”
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A group of young men, upon hearing the news of Kathleen’s death, pile into a car and make their way across the North Carolina/Virginia line.
“When I was home, I was expecting it just to be me and my family. I was starting to feel kind of alone,” Chase said. “To have those five or six guys pull together and say, ‘We’re coming to Lynchburg for you — no matter what’ — for them to just show up, that feeling is indescribable.”
But their support didn’t end when they left Virginia.
The six, all members of Chase’s fraternity, spearheaded an effort that saw more than $1,200 donated by Chi Psi to the Susan G. Komen Foundation that semester in Kathleen’s memory.
And they founded an event, the “Pink Tie Ball,” which brought dozens of NCSU students, alumni and staff together for an evening of remembrance where they would vow, in one voice, to do their part to ensure Kathleen’s death was not in vain.
Chase remains overwhelmed — not just about the success of that event, but the fact that Friday, Chi Psi will hold the thirteenth annual Pink Tie Ball in Raleigh.
“It’s deep. Most of these brothers barely know me — if they know me at all — so for them to take this on, not knowing my mom, not really even knowing me, and having just heard the story, it moves you. You can’t help but have it move you,” Chase said. “Every time Pink Tie comes up, it makes me wonder, ‘What did I do, what did Mom do to deserve this?’ There are so many people who have lost loved ones, yet this is the story that spurred people on to create this event and raise this money to try to fight cancer. Why this story? Why me? Why Mom? I don’t have an answer for it, but it’s a powerful thing. I can’t even put it into words. It’s just that special.”
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Kathleen won’t be in the crowd when her daughter walks down the aisle and will never know her grandchildren.
But those who have carried her in their hearts since September 2006 would tell you she has never really left them.
And when the Pink Tie Ball unfolds for the thirteenth consecutive year, Kathleen’s presence will be impossible to ignore.
Chase isn’t all that surprised that his mother continues to leave her footprint on the world.
In life, she was a force of nature — the type of person everybody wanted to know.
“She was just a caring and compassionate person. She cared about everybody around her — everyone she met,” Chase said. “She just brought people together.”
And in death, her legacy of courage — and the pure love she brought to all things — has grown into something that can’t be measured or ignored.
And that, her son says, keeps her traveling alongside all those carrying on her fight.
“I know that she lives on,” Chase said. “She knew that she was going to live on.”