Back from tragedy
Rochester Hills woman returns from vacation alone, but determined
By Kathleen Gray Free Press Staff Writer
The black cloud of cancer that hung over Sigrid Grace was lifted, at least for a while.
She was reveling in the second day of a dream vacation planned by her husband, John, taking in the majesty of Grand Te-ton National Park in Wyoming in a rented red Camaro after spending a few hours fulfilling a bucket-list wish to be a cowgirl.
WHAM!
“Suddenly everything was white and the sky was cracked,” Sigrid recalled.
It was a head-on crash — airbags erupted, windshield shattered — that turned her dream trip into a nightmare. In an instant, John Grace, her husband of 38 years, her best friend and confidante, was gone.
That was nearly two weeks ago. Sigrid returned from Wyoming and buried her husband. Now she is getting ready to resume debilitating chemotherapy sessions and learning to live without the man she met 40 years ago in her first year at Central Michigan University.
“When I say we’ve been married for 38 years, it seems like such a long time. But when it ends so precipitously, it just seems so short,” she said.
“I was spared for whatever reason, so when I see something that needs to be done, I’ll do it.”
THE TRIP THAT TURNED so tragic was one that John, 59, insisted they take as a reward for the difficult two years Sigrid had endured. The Rochester Hills resident was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2009 at age 57, and weathered a bout with radiation. But last spring, the cancer returned in the more aggressive HER2-positive form. Sigrid knew she was in trouble when doctors at the University of Michigan Health Systems scheduled her appointment on a day reserved for the most serious patients.
Sigrid had a double mastectomy in August, but was back to teaching second grade in the Almont school district a month later and began enduring twice-monthly chemotherapy treatments that will last through October.
Her grueling schedule shifted both their priorities last year. A Democratic activist, Sigrid gave up most of the political work that filled her schedule. Her blond hair was gone, replaced with a pair of wigs. Custodians at her school took extra care to keep her classroom especially clean to guard against compromising her weakened immune system.
And John, a teacher-turned-bankruptcy attorney, curtailed his outside activism and mentoring to care for his wife, losing 22 pounds in the process.
With their future uncertain, John wanted to lift Sigrid’s spirits.
What did she most want to do, he asked.
“I want to be a cowgirl,” she said. “I’ve always loved horses.”
So in the spring, she began to take riding lessons every Friday night to prepare for the trip west. It had a little bit of something for both of them — the Heart Six dude ranch experience for Sigrid, the nature and wildlife photography for John.
“He got the idea in his head and planned it all,” she said. “He was going to go river rafting that first day I was riding, but he wanted to stay close to make sure I was OK.”
IT WAS JUST THE TYPE of man John was, Sigrid said, always looking out for other people — whether they were students he was mentoring, youth groups at church where he planned and prepared big spaghetti dinners or political candidates he quietly helped.
“He saw potential. He saw possibility in everyone,” said the Rev. Daniel Fox during John’s funeral service Friday at St. Andrew’s Catholic Church in Rochester. “John’s life was about encouraging that potential.”
On that first full day of vacation in Wyoming, while Sigrid rode, John scouted locations for dramatic photos of Mt. Moran, the wildflowers that dotted the landscape and the Snake River.
The next day they drove through the Grand Tetons, enjoying the scenery and taking lots of pictures. Sigrid took one of John standing next to that sizzling red Camaro, a big grin on his face. That’s the last thing she recalls clearly about the day.
Twenty minutes later, her world changed.
Sigrid remembers good Samaritans helping her from the car, which was totaled in the head-on collision with a pickup. She remembers her injuries being tended and people seeming not too worried about John. It was because they knew he was beyond help.
Sigrid said the passersby who stopped helped her to the driver’s side window, so she could hold John’s hand. She told him she loved him and said the Lord’s Prayer, over and over.
Finally, she agreed to go to the hospital, where doctors told her it was a miracle she hadn’t been killed in the crash, too.
The driver of the truck and his passenger were not injured. The accident remains under investigation by National Park rangers.
Sigrid draws on her survival to give her a sense of purpose. John, she knows, would want her to carry on with living.
“Cancer hangs over you like a black cloud,” she said. “But if God had intended to take me, he surely would have taken me in the accident.”
When the couple’s son, John, picked her up at the airport last week, Sigrid insisted on driving home, refusing to succumb to fear from the crash.
And the day after the funeral, she gathered bouquets of flowers sent by friends and family and delivered them to shut-ins who might need a little cheering up.
By Sunday, she was attending the Oak-land County Democratic Party’s Phil Hart dinner and by Monday she was talking with a group of other breast cancer survivors and assuring them she would be back taking weekly hikes with them as soon as her bruises healed. A lesson from her daughter Margaret on how to drive the riding lawnmower was on the schedule for later in the day.
Sigrid plans to return to Almont in the fall to teach.
“I really don’t know what my prognosis is,” she said, “but I personally think I’m going to be OK.”
! CONTACT KATHLEEN GRAY: 313-223-4407 OR
KGRAY99@FREEPRESS.COM
FAMILY PHOTOS
John Grace had planned a dream vacation for himself and his wife, Sigrid Grace, above, as a pick-me-up after her breast cancer, mastectomy and chemotherapy. They visited the Heart Six dude ranch near Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming.
Twenty minutes after Sigrid Grace took this picture of John with their rental car, her husband of 38 years was dead in a crash.
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