Daughter of ITEAM teacher's life was about the journey, not the destination

Kristen Kuhn and her boyfriend, Connor Shedeed. Courtesy Photo
Kristen Kuhn and her boyfriend, Connor Shedeed. Courtesy Photo

By Alli Davis / World-Herald staff writer
Nov 17, 2018

If life were about the destination, Kristen Kuhn and her father, Brett Kuhn, never would have taken a trip they called “Operation Cadillac” last fall. Their goal: transport Grandma and Grandpa’s car from Lincoln to Arizona. Their plan: nonexistent. The outcome: a father-daughter adventure through the national parks of the American West.

“We both held onto our trip theme of ‘It’s not about the destination; it’s about the journey,’ ” Brett Kuhn told family friend Shannon Leiting.

And for the hundreds who gathered for her Nov. 7 funeral at St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in Gretna, Kristen Kuhn’s journey was far from over.

In a eulogy, Leiting shared a collection of responses from family and friends who had finished the statement, “From Kristen, I learned all about ...”

They shared lessons the 22-year-old had taught them of the importance of laughter, compassion, silliness and faith.

Leiting, addressing Kuhn, said, “We will never be able to go back to who we were before, before we loved you and were loved by you.”

Kuhn died Nov. 2 after an almost three-year battle with Ewing’s sarcoma, a rare type of bone cancer.

She was tired, friends said, when she died in her parents’ home in Gretna, a home where she had lived since fourth grade.

Kuhn was diagnosed with Ewing’s sarcoma in January 2016 while studying biological systems at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Her love for animals fueled her desire to be a veterinarian, Leiting said.

For 11 months, Kuhn received chemotherapy and radiation treatment at Omaha Children’s Hospital and Medical Center, until she was told in a phone call at a Husker game that the cancer was gone.

Kuhn, a member of the Kappa Alpha Theta sorority, returned to school the next August and finished that semester.

But scans in December showed that the cancer had returned. She moved back home to Gretna and started treatment again.

In January 2016, shortly after her initial diagnosis, Kristen and her boyfriend, Connor Shedeed, were baptized at Ellis Baptist Church in Ellis, Kansas, near Fort Hays State University, where Shedeed plays football.

“Everything about them changed,” friend Allie Feighner said. “It was really cool to watch.”

Shedeed proposed to Kuhn two weeks before she died.

He told her mother, Tami Kuhn, that he had had the ring for a while and was planning to propose at Christmas, but her rapidly declining health sped things up. The high school sweethearts had been dating for six years.

About a week before the proposal, Kuhn lost mobility in her legs. A spinal operation didn’t help, so she spent her final days in a wheelchair.

None of Kuhn’s relatives or friends remembered her complaining about pain, even when they knew that it was bad, Feighner said.

“She got to this point of overwhelming peace, knowing that God was going to use (her illness),” Feighner said. “She knew where she was going.”

The family plans to start a scholarship at Gretna High School in Kuhn’s name.

On Saturday, her parents and sisters will be in Indianapolis cheering for Fort Hays State in the NCAA Division II playoffs.

“Now our motto is, ‘What would Kristen do?’ ” Tami Kuhn said. “And that’s what she would do.”