CityView Magazine

Walker Y Worth, III worthw@nationwide.com Get professional advice when insuring the largest purchases you've ever made. Great coverage, rates and insurance advice from Nationwide®. Stephanie, Kaylin and Shaina Kennedy WALKER WORTH AGENCY 3821 RAMSEY ST, SUITE 120 Fayetteville, NC 28311 - 910.488.5056 ©2006 Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company and Affiliated Companies. Nationwide Life Insurance Company. Home office: Columbus, Ohio 43215-2220. Nationwide, the Nationwide Framemark and On Your Side are federally registered service marks of Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company. Not available in all states. CF C Cape Fear Crematory, Inc. More cost effective than traditional burial We offer private family viewings Affordable cremation services available 24 hours a day Serving eastern NC for more than 30 years "Where Compassion and Care Run the Business" 6765 Sandy Creek Road Stedman, NC 28391 910.323.8898 www.capefearcrematory.com 62 | May/June • 2013 as some people can tell when the rain is coming. Her bones hurt and her joints begin to swell. The pain in her chest comes on strong and her heart rate increases, along with extreme fatigue. Staying positive on her Facebook page and interspersing sarcasm and jokes into their family life as a coping mechanism, deep down inside Kennedy admits that she still has hope —  hope that medical research will come forward to provide her with relief and decrease the symptoms that have robbed her of her once-normal life. The symbol for lupus is a purple butterfly. Kennedy has this butterfly tattooed on the inside of her ankle as a daily reminder to hold fast to that hope. When she married at the age of 22 and anxiously began her climb up the corporate ladder in marketing she never anticipated the turn her life would take. Now 39 and no longer working because of the disease, she uses her marketing knowledge to raise community awareness about lupus. "Steph and I have been together for over 19 years, we were college sweet hearts," said her husband, Courtland Kennedy. "Lupus has taken a lot from us, but it's also brought us closer together. We both know we're there for each other no matter what life throws at us. She's the strongest person I know." In 2009 Kennedy rallied her close friends and supporters to create a lupus Walk event in Fayetteville. While there are annual Lupus Walks in Raleigh in Charlotte, there was nothing in Fayetteville. Their first year, the ladies raised $23,000. The next year they raised $39,000. In their third year, 2012, Kennedy's husband joined forces with them and they raised $46,000 with over 950 walkers participating. The next Lupus Awareness Walk in Fayetteville will be in September at Festival Park and the donations will go directly to the Lupus Foundation of North Carolina, which brings educational classes here for younger teens dealing with the illness, as well as courses for caregivers and educational materials for the community. "You don't go through lupus alone, the whole family goes through it," Stephanie Kennedy said. It's a sentiment echoed by her children. "Lupus takes a big part in all of our lives, but we all have learned how to push past that and still be a normal family," said her 14-year-old daughter Kaylin, a freshman at Cape Fear High School. "We all have challenges in our lives, but the thing is that we know how to hide the fact that our mother is so sick, and try to make the best out of every moment." To learn more about lupus, go to www.lupus.org. CV

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