DULUTH – Shimia Nord wasn’t expected to live long enough to graduate alongside her Duluth East classmates, so she had a massive party months early. Hundreds attended.
Nord, dressed like a more fashionable Joker, worked her way from person to person at the Halloween-themed event at Clyde Iron Works organized by the Make-A-Wish Foundation. She posed for countless photos. She danced a bit — then she always found her way back to her guests. She seemed unaffected by the terminal renal cell carcinoma, as many remarked that night.
Nord did make it to graduation — and had plans to attend St. Cloud State University or, as a tough summer wore on, the University of Minnesota Duluth. She had signed up for classes.
Nord died Sept. 15 among her family and friends, according to her obituary. She was 18.
“I don’t know that I’ve accepted that she’s gone yet,” her mother, Rikelle Hendrickson, said Thursday. “She was so amazing to me. I’m so sad that I don’t get to see what she could have been, the mother she could have been, the adult she could have been.”
Nord sought medical attention for debilitating back pain that had gotten so bad she was throwing up. Scans showed a large mass on her kidney, which was removed, then a nodule on her lung a few months later. The tumors continued to grow despite cancer treatments.
In January, she was told she had just a few weeks, maybe months left.
Through it all, she kept her hustle. She was on the dance team, held jobs, and took classes at UMD through the state’s postsecondary enrollment options program. She had more than enough credits to graduate early and was accepted to 15 colleges. She had plans to study criminal justice.
