Donna Coffman and her daughter, Sarah, smile as they flip through a fist-thick book in Donna’s front room. Family photographs fixed to crisp pages arouse memories from the not-so-distant past.

Letters reside there, too. “Dear Grandma,” “Dear Mom,” they begin and then go on to relay memories, thanks and whatever other last sentiments children and grandchildren wanted their mother and grandmother to read.

Sarah, Donna and their extended family poured their emotions into the scrap book and presented it to the family matriarch, Henrietta Karlin, before she died of colon cancer in 1999. Now, on holidays and special occasions, the family revisits the book.

The memories are bittersweet. Donna remembers a strong mother, always busy at home in the kitchen and then later, after the last of her eight children reached kindergarten, in the kitchens of Lawrence public schools. She taught Donna, by example, always to put family first.

Sarah remembers an ornery grandmother who loved bingo and surrounded herself with her gaggle of grandchildren to pick vegetables and berries.

Donna watched her mom — and Sarah watched her grandmother — wither from 135 pounds to 50 pounds in the months leading up to her death. They were devastated.

But they were also inspired. A week from now, Sarah will walk down Campanile hill during Kansas University’s graduation ceremony. The 21-year-old has earned a degree in nursing and plans to specialize in oncology and palliative care.

“It (my grandma’s illness) is the reason I went into nursing. It’s the sole reason,” Sarah says. “We had a great Hospice nurse when she was dying. … I remember her being there just a few days before she died. She knew it was coming really close. She hugged everyone. She prayed with us. She was great.

“I want to be that in people’s lives.”

Making the most of time

Sarah Coffman, left, and her mother, Donna, flip through a scrapbook created to celebrate the life of Donna's mother, who died of cancer in 1999. Sarah, inspired by the care of a hospice nurse who took care of her grandmother, studied nursing at Kansas University and plans to specialize in oncology and palliative care. She graduates a week from today.

Donna Coffman was the third of eight children Karlin and her husband raised together in Lawrence. Coffman credits her mother with always making her feel special, despite being part of a large family.

Doctors discovered Karlin’s colon cancer during a routine exam in 1995. She was in her early 60s. She immediately had surgery and underwent a year of chemotherapy. For about six months after the grueling treatments, she felt great, Coffman says. But then the cancer showed up in her ovaries and later metastasized to her liver. At that point, doctors gave her six months. She lived nine.

Coffman, a pharmacist at Ransom Memorial Hospital in Ottawa, said working in health care sometimes made it even more difficult to cope with her mother’s illness.

“Sometimes knowing is harder when you’re going through something like this,” says Coffman, who also has a brother who is a pharmacist. “My mother found great comfort in having people to ask questions. She would want us to be in the conferences with doctors, helping her make decisions as to what was the best course.

“We were honest enough to tell her at the last meeting, “Mom, I wouldn’t do anymore.”

So the family made the most of the remaining time. There was a big reunion, a picture weekend, a last Mother’s Day and a last Christmas. Karlin died Jan. 6, 1999, surrounded by her children and husband of nearly 45 years.

“I think very little was left unsaid,” Coffman says.

Teaching motherhood

She remembers something her mother used to tell her: “The easiest way to get into heaven is to have children.”

“Because of the sacrifices you make as a mother,” Coffman recalls. “She told me that I wouldn’t understand until I had children of my own.”

She was right, Coffman says.

Mothers give up sleep, social lives and sometimes sanity raising their babies. They worry: first, perhaps, that they’re not teaching the right lessons and later, as their children grow older, that their lessons didn’t sink in.

If they’re wise, Coffman has found, they do things their children love — even if they don’t much enjoy those things themselves. Coffman’s not much of a shopper, but her daughter, Sarah, could spend hours at the mall.

So Donna goes.

And though rifling through stacks of blouses, trying on pants and searching for matching accessories doesn’t thrill her quite as much as Sarah, the mild suffering is worth the trade off: Sarah’s smile.

“I find myself taking time to do things that I didn’t get to do with my mom because I know how special that is,” Coffman says. “Sarah and I have taken a couple trips to New York by ourselves. We’re just creating memories for her, and I’m also teaching her how to be a mom.”

Whether Coffman knows it yet or not, her daughter is picking up on those lessons. She rattles of a list of wisdom her mother has imparted:

“Be assertive.”

“You can do whatever you want to do.”

“Have faith that things will work out.”

“Love your kids, no matter what they do.”

“If I had a daughter, I’d want her to feel special and wanted no matter who she is or what she looks like,” Sarah says. “I always got that from my mom.

“We’re very close. I think it’s a very special relationship.”