Relay for Kim

May 2006 I met a remarkable young woman learning to live and laugh again after the death of her beloved mother.

I wrote a Mother’s Day story about Brianna Gaither of Edmond and her discovery that the piano lessons she had fought against had resulted in a musical transformation that became her pathway to healing after her mom’s death. Kim Gaither, who had inflammatory breast cancer, died in November 2005 at age 46.  The musically inclined mother was determined that her daughter continue piano lessons and though the daughter balked, she was grateful for her mother’s insistence as the words and music came pouring out as she mourned.

Brianna Gaither wrote song after song on the family’s piano in the days, weeks and months after Kim Gaither’s untimely death.

I listened to some of the songs on compact disc and was startled at how good and fresh they were, particularly coming from someone recently bereaved. 

Brianna Gaither’s alma mater (she graduated this past May), Oklahoma Christian Academy, is holding its second annual Relay for Life in Kim Gaither’s memory from 7 p.m. Oct. 5 to 7 a.m. Oct. 6.

Cody Painter, an OCA student collecting money for cancer research through the relay, said this is the students’ way to say thanks to Kim Gaither, who was well-known at the school and Oklahoma Christian University, where she was a faculty member.

“Even though cancer claimed her life, it didn’t claim the loving, caring legacy she left with her family and all those who knew her including many of the students and faculty of OCA in Edmond,” Cody wrote.