Sharon Rose

Thoughts Outside the Office

Growing up, I spent as much time as possible with my grandmother, Rose Rose Hampton, in Oak Grove. If school was out, I wanted to be there. When I had to come home, I would cry for days. I loved my grandmother fiercely, and she loved me the same way. My family called me “the tick” because I stayed glued to her. I will write about her another time. I am thinking about her now, though. Her letters are still in the desk in my office.

This is about my grandmother’s daughter, Sharon Rose. That is what my grandmother called her, or at least that is how I remember it. My dad and his three siblings were the first people in their family to graduate from college. Aunt Sharon became a CPA and later worked for the school board in Oak Grove. My grandmother was very proud of her.

Aunt Sharon usually lived close to my grandmother, and she was always trying to get me to stay with her. I would visit during the day, but eventually I wanted to go back to my grandmother. Aunt Sharon knew I was not going to stay. She knew I was going to choose my grandmother every time, but she never stopped asking me. I think about that now because she never acted offended or made me feel bad. She just kept letting me know she wanted me there.

As we got older, we saw less of each other. She came to some of my high school basketball games when she could, but she and her children had their own lives in Oak Grove. Eventually, we mostly saw each other at Christmas, Thanksgiving, or one of my dad’s campaign events. I hate that we grew apart, but I still loved her. I always assumed she would be over there in Oak Grove, whether I saw her regularly or not.

Aunt Sharon went through more before she was thirty than I understood when I was a child. Her first husband was a young police officer who was murdered during a jail break in Oak Grove in 1988. I was six months old. She later remarried and had a baby girl who lived for only days. I remember the funeral. I remember knowing that my dad was intentionally shielding me from seeing things he did not think a little girl should see. I knew what he was doing, and I let him do it because I wanted to be shielded. I did not fully understand what had happened, but I knew a child had died, I knew Aunt Sharon was hurting, and I remember how dark the funeral home felt.

I did not understand then how traumatic her life had already been. I do now. She had lost her husband in a brutal murder and then lost her first child. Still, I almost never heard her say anything mean about anyone. There was one time when she made a dry, sarcastic and slightly petty comment about somebody who was getting on both of our nerves. I laughed so hard I nearly fell down. I am leaving out the details because my family has enough to argue about, and I am usually accused of striking the match. The comment was not even that bad. It was just so unexpected coming from Aunt Sharon that I have remembered it all these years.

Aunt Sharon had already witnessed another kind of suffering through her mother. My grandmother, Rosemarie Hampton, lived with a condition that caused excess fluid to build up on her brain. At one point, she was unresponsive for a period of time and then spent more than a year relearning nearly everything—how to walk, how to talk, her letters, her speech. Sharon had to watch her mother endure that, and she helped her through the long process of finding her way back. Years later, she would once again sit beside her mother in a hospital bed, only this time watching cancer take her far, far too early. Sharon knew what it meant to love someone through the most difficult parts of living—and what it meant to lose them anyway.

There is also something about the name Rose that feels important to me now. My grandmother was Rose Marie Hampton. Her name carried forward in my aunt, Sharon Rose Hampton Ward, and again in my daughter, Sara Rose Kozik. It is almost as though Rose’ name divided itself between generations—Rose carried by Sharon and Rose carried by Sara. That Rose has held firm through the women in our family, and right now, Sara Rose is the one carrying the torch.

Nineteen years ago, when I first became sick with ulcerative colitis, I had to sit out a quarter at Louisiana Tech and move home so my parents could help take care of me. I was very sick. I felt diseased, useless and completely separated from everyone else my age. Then I found out Aunt Sharon had ulcerative colitis too. She was the first person I had ever known who had what I had. Nothing about my illness changed when I learned that, but I was not the only one anymore.

I saw Aunt Sharon last summer at my dad’s last campaign event. I was still pretty sick, and we talked about ulcerative colitis. She told me she had not had any trouble with hers in years, and I remember being jealous. That was the last time I saw her.

Three months ago, while I was in the middle of my own mess, my mother told me Aunt Sharon had started getting sick again and doctors had found a mass in her colon. My mind immediately went to the worst possibility because colon cancer is one of the things people with ulcerative colitis worry about. I did not hear much after that except that she was having tests and trying to get answers. Then last week, my dad told me she was going to MD Anderson. The doctors were going to determine a treatment plan, although they believed the cancer had probably spread.

I knew that was bad, but I still thought there would be treatment. I imagined visiting her in the hospital. I imagined her going through surgery or chemotherapy and all of us watching her fight it. I imagined it being long and terrible, but I also imagined her eventually being told she was cancer-free. I never allowed myself to imagine that there might not be time for any of that.

My parents left for MD Anderson on Friday. They told me Aunt Sharon was very sick, but I thought she was in the best place possible and that the doctors were finally going to give the family some answers. Within twenty-four hours, I received a text saying she was unresponsive. Unresponsive to what? What she being stubborn? At first, I did not understand what that meant. Then I learned she had suffered a stroke and a seizure while the doctors were trying to put together a treatment plan. She was too weak for surgery, and there was nothing more they could do.

I asked my dad whether there was anything I could do. He said no. She had been placed on end-of-life care, and all that was left for us to do was wait.

I do not know why this is hitting me as hard as it is. Maybe part of it is because we were not close anymore and I assumed there would be more time. I assumed I would see her at another holiday or another event. I assumed that no matter how long it had been, Aunt Sharon would still be in Oak Grove.

My grandmother and Aunt Sharon were the two people who tied me most closely to that place. Soon, they will both be gone. I will go back to Oak Grove this week or next and say goodbye again. I think I am grieving Aunt Sharon, but I am also grieving the fact that the Oak Grove I have carried with me since I was a little girl will not be there anymore. I am grieving for my cousins as well. Despite the distance, they remained in my heart even when seeing each other meant a few hours on Christmas afternoon. They are carrying pain that I can't even begin to understand.

I wish I had stayed with her more.

Judith L. Hampton

Attorney At Law

Hampton Law Firm, LLC

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