Somali single mom who died of cancer and left 4 boys behind

[ElPunto]

'No one else can do this for us'

 

Kadra Koulmiye, 37, was the sole caregiver, biggest cheerleader and inspiration to her four sons. When she died of cancer two weeks ago, the brothers were left to make it on their own.

 

By Shelley, Ottawa Citizen April 14, 2012

 

 

Read more: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/else+this/6458435/story.html#ixzz1sPkj8di6

 

 

The photo was supposed to capture a sweet slice of a late-summer road trip to an amusement park. But when Kadra Koulmiye saw the image of herself in front of a man-made waterfall at Canada's Wonderland, flanked by two of her four boys, her eyes went to her belly.

 

"Why do I look so fat?" she asked her eldest son.

 

Taib, 19, also noticed the swelling of her abdomen. Ever practical, he offered to go with his mom to the Merivale YMCA, where they often worked out together, to do some extra stomach crunches.

 

But she confessed she was so very tired.

 

"Us brothers, we could all think of so many reasons why she would be tired," Taib recalls.

 

On school days, their mother rose at 5 a.m. to make their breakfasts and lunches before going to the first of her two jobs. She was a beloved educational assistant at Churchill Alternative School, and worked at a group home in the evening. Between shifts, she tutored six-year-old Bilal to give him a leg up. She worked the two jobs to afford the rent on a townhouse near Carlingwood Shopping Mall, and the many after-school activities she insisted her sons do to stay out of trouble, stay healthy, achieve.

 

Of course she was tired.

 

The fatigue became intractable, as her stomach grew. She developed a chronic cough that one doctor said was pneumonia.

 

Then, on Dec. 23, Taib was called to the Queensway-Carleton Hospital, where he found his mom folded over in pain in a wheelchair.

 

Doctors ordered diagnostic tests and then tried to send her home. She insisted she stay. That night, a tumour in her abdomen ruptured.

 

Kadra Koulmiye, 37, sole caregiver, biggest cheerleader, inspiration to and proudest mama of Taib, Tyler, 18, Jamal, 12, and little Bilal, had Stage 4 gastric cancer that had spread to her lungs.

 

Taib was there when the blow was delivered.

 

"I will never forget that she didn't ask about herself. She asked what this would mean for us. She asked who would take care of us? She asked how we would get by without her?"

 

It was truly a mother's worst nightmare: the fear that she might not be there to see them grow up, or help them grow up.

 

Kadra's boys had many difficult questions of their own. Some were basic: How would they pay rent? Buy food and gas and pay for football and soccer, school supplies and field trips?

 

However, the hardest questions were of the heart, asked in the moments when these four boys feared she wouldn't survive and they would be lost.

 

Who would love them? How would they grow up to be the impressive men their mother hoped they would be?

 

-

 

Taib and Tyler believed their mother's "survival instinct" would clobber the cancer. She was the human embodiment, Taib says, "of where there is a will, there's a way."

 

She'd taught her four boys how to take care of themselves, in large part, because she'd had to fend for herself when she was young.

 

Kadra was from a wealthy Somali family that lived in Dire Dawa, Ethiopia. When she was around 12, she and her younger sister were sent to Canada with their older brother in search of a better education.

 

While in Ottawa, though, their brother learned he was terminally ill. He placed his sisters with the Children's Aid Society and left for Africa to die alone. He never told their mother where the girls were. All family ties were severed and the sisters were lost to their family. Abandoned to foster care, they did not find opportunities greater than they would have had in Ethiopia.

 

Kadra was still a teenager when she met the man with whom she would have four sons. When the relationship ended she raised the boys on her own, determined to give them all she'd never had.

 

Before she fell ill it seemed that she would.

 

Taib, in second-year at Carleton University, studies political science. He paid for most of his school through awards, bursaries, loans and a part-time job as a clerk. Thoughtful, soft-spoken and responsible, he is the man of the house. But it is a role he shares with Tyler, a year younger.

 

Tyler's top marks at Nepean High School earned him a full scholarship to the University of Ottawa, where he takes conflict studies and human rights. Like Taib, he played football and also earned a black belt in karate. He tutors learning-disabled students.

 

Lanky Jamal, mature beyond his years, is in middle French immersion at D. Roy Kennedy Public School and plays the bass and football. Bilal, with an infectious and toothless smile, plays soccer and steals hearts.

 

Kadra insisted on strong morals and good judgment. "She always told us, 'Have friends that will make you better. And, if they need your help, be there to raise them up but don't hang out with people that bring you down,'" Taib says.

 

She would take on more work to give her boys opportunities, like when Tyler was earning his black belt.

 

She also expected much from her boys. Taib and Tyler cared for their younger brothers by picking them up after school and taking them to practices and playgrounds. They pitched in to cook and clean.

 

By all accounts they are good boys. "She did a wonderful job raising them," says her friend, realestate agent Cheryl Brouse. "They hug each other to say 'hello,' they are so polite and decent, hard working."

 

Last fall, Brouse recalls sitting with Kadra watching their boys play football. "She talked about how much she loved them. How she would do anything for them. Then the cancer."

 

-

 

As Kadra's younger sister arrived from Ajax to help the boys, parents in the Churchill school community prepared meals, bought groceries, gave rides to practice, raised money to cover rent and gas.

 

Taib calls them "angels."

 

"Every time I think what they have done for us I get so emotional. I don't know any of these people. They have been the biggest blessing of my life."

 

With practical worries taken care of they focused on their mom.

 

At her strongest, Kadra danced with Bilal down the hospital hallways, laughing and singing, sharing her hospital Jell-O, while shielding her sons from crippling "pain crises."

 

"In her heart, I think she thought she was going to die," Taib says.

 

Whenever the older boys expressed hope, she urged them to be "realistic."

 

She coached them on how to keep the house functioning and care for Jamal and Bilal. She reminded them to eat healthy and make school their highest priority.

 

She asked Tyler, "Can you promise me you won't get angry with the world if I'm gone?"

 

-

 

In early March, Kadra's breathing became laboured. Her lungs were like hallways, ever narrowing.

 

Her sharp mind dulled and she confused easily. Chemotherapy had not stopped the spread. The cancer was in her brain.

 

Taib and Tyler finally understood their mother was dying.

 

"I told her I loved her as much as I could," Taib says.

 

Kadra's sister moved mountains to bring their elderly mother to Ottawa. They had reconnected a few years earlier after finding relatives in Toronto. Kadra was barely conscious when her mother, who she had not seen in 30 years, arrived to embrace her long-lost daughter. But she made it.

 

Little Bilal, too, came to say goodbye.

 

Say Taib: "I didn't want to take the chance away from him to see her. When we were leaving, I said, 'Give mama a kiss.'"

 

He sent Jamal in by himself. "I told him that, even though she is asleep right now, she can still hear you. And he told her everything he ever wanted to say."

 

She died the next day, Saturday, March 17.

 

-

 

Taib confesses he is overwhelmed. He talks of meeting lawyers, insurance adjusters, social workers, teachers and school administrators. He and Tyler, who have maintained full course loads, must take exams and write papers that were deferred.

 

Sadness infuses everything. "Our biggest challenge is dealing with our grief and not knowing how to," Taib says quietly. "We have so many emotions and we don't know if they are the right emotions or the wrong emotions.

 

"I feel like my life could explode because mom did everything and now it's up to me."

 

Tyler says they try to wrap the younger boys in their mother's lingering love. They have Bilal say 'Good morning' to their mother, and at night he tells her about his day.

 

There are still significant unknowns, especially around where the boys will live, and how they will support themselves.

 

Parents and staff from Churchill and D. Roy Kennedy schools have set up a trust fund to help with immediate costs, and maybe even help send Kadra's two youngest to university one day. So far $10,900 has been raised, while raffles and bake sales are planned.

 

The boys' grandmother, on a sixmonth visa, is getting to know her grandsons.

 

"She tells us that she saw her daughter for only two days, but at least she left four pieces of her."

 

Four sons. Four brothers. Four lost boys.

 

Taib pulls out the picture of his mother from last August, the one that hinted at all that would happen. He looks at it hard before asking more piercing questions.

 

"How is anyone else going to ever know us the way our mom did? How is anyone ever going to love us the way our mom did? How is anyone going to care for us the way our mom did? I don't want to trap myself into this negative thinking, but the truth is no one else can do this for us."

 

To find out more about the trust fund set up for the boys, go to http: //kadra-koulmiye.ca

 

HOW YOU CAN HELP

 

Parents and staff from Churchill and D. Roy Kennedy schools have set up a trust fund for the sons of Kadra Koulmiye. So far $10,900 has been raised. For more information and to donate, go to http: //kadra-koulmiye.ca

[ElPunto]

Sad story. The family dynamic is very odd though - the behaviour of the brother, the sisters and the parents themselves strike as me as extremely strange. Many ppl may have gotten lost in this way.

[wyre]

Every word I read brings tear into my eyes, I wish I could help, but I can't

[Blessed]

Allah Yarxamhaa. She must have been an amazing woman to raise such lovely young men, I wish them success. So sad to lose your mum or for a parent to go when they are so young, it's every parents worry that you won't be there for them until they are self sufficient.

[Yunis]

ElPunto;820244 wrote:

Sadness infuses everything. "Our biggest challenge is dealing with our grief and not knowing how to," Taib says quietly. "We have so many emotions and we don't know if they are the right emotions or the wrong emotions.

 

at 19, taib is wise in any stadards - captivating piece. very sad indeed. Abandon, neglected and dropped at foster care her self - she went on to raise amazing boys soon to be men.

[Bluelicious]

Sad to lose your mum that way especially when your still young

 

Death is part of the life cycle and inevitable. Don't they have a near family of their mother's side who can take care of them instead of being dropped in a foster care. The circumstances in a foster care are not always good.

[Abu-Salman]

Getting some islamic mentoring and dawah is these brave youngsters most important need: I'm positive you Solers in Ottawa or nearby could visit them from time to time and talk to them, link them to the local islamic centres and ensure the necessary is done (those boys seem smart and some islamic litterature would help them).

 

 

PS: The mother may have done her best given her foster care past etc...

[Miskiin-Macruuf-Aqiyaar]

Aabahooda is completely ignored in laga hadlo in this article. I guess there is a reason.

 

Eebbe ha u raxmado walaasheen, ciyaalkeedana samir iyo iimaan.

[oba hiloowlow]

Allahyarxama, alla xanuun badanaa to loose ur mother, i remember when my mum died i was 8 yrs aniga ayaa reerka ugu weynaa, and my little walaalos asking hooyo aaway. Life is tough samir is the key. Dadkiinan hooyadiin nooshahay ka faa'ideysta

[Garnaqsi]

I want to cry.

 

An amazing woman! May she rest in peace and love.

[walaalkis]

oba hiloowlow;820372 wrote:

Allahyarxama, alla xanuun badanaa to loose ur mother, i remember when my mum died i was 8 yrs aniga ayaa reerka ugu weynaa, and my little walaalos asking hooyo aaway. Life is tough samir is the key. Dadkiinan hooyadiin nooshahay ka faa'ideysta

Sad indeed , death is part of life and we should all be prepare for it. We shall be all be prepare for it. You can be in the club

or wedding dancing to one of your favorite tunes and you,can dy on the spot

[Salsabil]

إِنَّا لِلّهِ وَإِنَّـا إِلَيْهِ رَاجِعونَ To Allah we belong and to him we shall return, May Allah have mercy on her soul and protect and guide her offspring, Ameen. This story made me cry but Alhamdullillah the older two are young men who seem mature for their age. I love the suggestion that the Somali folk living in Ottawa should try to contact and support the boys. Remember to make dua for these boys and the many more Muslims who are suffereing Inshallah.

[rudy-Diiriye]

Rip..sista!! where the hell is the father! own up homie....its time to come to bat n hit a home run bugger.

[Sensei]

Ilaahay janada Fardowsa ha ka waraabiyo Khatra, Ilaahay ha u naxariisto. We are Somalis and "family" is our last name, and I certainly hope folks do not fail those young men.

[Beer-Gaal]

نَّا لِلّهِ وَإِنَّـا إِلَيْهِ رَاجِعونَ very sad indeed. But why haven;t they mention the boy's Dad ? I think he must dadka madow who happens to be noneMuslim.

 

any way Somalis/Muslim in Ottawa must step in and help the boys.