Barbara Kotey

Barbara Kotey, 77, formerly of Vancouver, WA, graduated from Hudson's Bay High School in 1961. She earned her nursing degree at Clark College and began her 42 year career as a registered nurse with the VA in Southern California, later retiring from Kaiser in Portland in 2005.

A single parent by 1968, Barbara raised two young children from her first marriage. For 14 years, she played the role of both mother and father while working - sometimes two jobs, in a time when that wasn’t common. Despite the challenges and very little sleep, she provided a warm and loving home for her children, all necessities, plus holiday gifts and amusement park fun. She worked nights and drove them all over town during the day for dance or music lessons, team sports, gymnastics, recitles, band events, and doctor appointments, often driving in her robe and sleeping in the car between activities. Barbara's frequent waiting room naps embarrassed her daughter so much that she would complain and nudge her mom often to wake her. Barbara playfully got payback 40 years later at her own doctor appointments, after switching driving and "nudging" roles with her grown daughter who worked night shift.

Despite her demanding life, Mom still managed to sew clothes for her family and enjoy hobbies like gardening and cake decorating. Growing up, we always had the most amazing birthday cakes, and her edible treasures disappeared quickly at school bake sales and potlucks at work. Barbara moved her family back to Vancouver in 1981 and went to work for Kaiser, where her easy going attitude and sense of humor sowed the seeds of decades long, deeply cherished friendships.

In 1982 Barbara met Emmanuel "Amon" Kotey, a kind-hearted, humble, soft-spoken, talented musician from Ghana, West Africa. He had answered her "singles ad" in the newspaper before the days of dating websites and despite their polar opposite backgrounds, they felt like soulmates immediately and married a year later. Her teenage kids were thrilled to have someone so special in their lives to call "Dad". From thousands of miles across the globe, Amon came and completed our family.

Amon and Barbara became so inseparable as a couple, one could hardly refer to one without mentioning the other. He even gave up his music career to earn his own nursing degree, then joined his wife at Kaiser for many years until their retirement. They carpooled to work daily and spent all their free time working in their lavish garden.

Gardening together was their greatest joy. They took on intimidating projects like koi ponds and waterfalls, raised flower beds, a labyrinth of drip irrigation, designing and building a giant copper trellis, and even sifting rocks out of the soil, all in the name of “happy plants”. They were likely on a first name basis with local nurseries and compost vendors. They rarely lounged outside to drink in the beauty of their hard work. Instead they delighted in digging, watering, picking, pruning, weeding, feeding, and planting new babies in their lush escape.

After her own kids were out of the nest, Barbara helped to mother four of Amon's teenaged and older children, when they became US citizens from Ghana in hopes of expanding their opportunities for a better life. Three chose to serve in the US military, another earned her doctorate, and all established families and successful careers of their own.

In her 30's Barbara had been diagnosed with MS, followed by one rheumatic auto-immune disease after another, leading to multiple arthritic joint surgeries and destruction over the years. Yet with each mobility loss, she worked through the pain and cleverly found new ways to perform daily activities, cook and garden. Dad was truly an angel in her life, picking her up, both physically and mentally. He would patiently set Mom up at a bench or work station so she could garden safely without reaching or lifting. Balance was a challenge and falling down became the norm, despite using a walker. She took it in stride and often emailed her "war wound" photos, as if they were badges of honor.

Mom always said she was like a two-legged tripod by herself, with Dad being the final leg keeping her from falling, both figuratively and quite literally at times. In 2007 when Amon was suddenly diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, she was devastated and felt God was kicking out her support leg in life. Dad's death almost destroyed her, as she considered "punching out" of her own life. Not yet ready to leave the home they had built together, she chose to remain there alone.

Little did she know, God would stretch out His own loving brace to keep her from tipping and falling. His support came daily as a network of close friends & family, carpenters, gardeners, neighbors, pets (one named "Tippy" for a reason), and even complete strangers, all acting as angels in her life. From Dad's final months throughout the next ten years of aging in-place in the home her and Amon created together, Christ's love showered her in the form of kindness from others in various ways. Help in her beautiful garden, lovingly cooked meals, groceries dropped by, fun lunch outings, construction of access ramps, trips shared to nurseries, technology assistance, fellowship visits, garage doors and gadgets repaired, drives across town to unload items, well-check visits and calls, and pizza delivered to her parking spot (which in pre-covid days was rare!).

Eventually the daily routine became too much and after months of downsizing, moved to Texas in 2017 to live with her daughter's family. I will be forever grateful to Jan Case for all her help those last months. Without her, the move would not have been possible.

"Diabetes? Well now, there's one I dodged." Facing countless new patient medical history forms the past few years, Mom found fun in calling out the few ailments she didn't ever have. She enjoyed randomly entering 341 as the “number of falls in the past year", and her light-hearted humor about her mobility challenges brought a laugh to the medical staff. For height, when her spine would no longer allow her to stand up straight, she replied, "I used to be 5'11", but now I'm 3'8"." Her matter-of-fact, ex-nurse dialogue with her cancer surgeon in 2019 was littered with jokes and laughter, uncharacteristic of most oncology appointments. She accepted the fate she might face by declining chemotherapy, saying she was "ready to go".

Anyone that knew Barbara likely knew her political views. They would also not be surprised to hear how thrilled she was to have lived long enough to cast her vote for Biden in a "red state"!

Barbara passed away peacefully of metastatic breast cancer Nov 19th, 2020 while under hospice care in her Texas home, with family by her side. She is survived by her children, Emmanuel, Steven, Stephanie, Ben, Abigail, Sam, and multiple grandchildren. She asked that her cremated remains be joined with her beloved Amon's and their pets, and scattered in the garden to become one with the beautiful flowers they so cherished.