Date posted: 11-18-03

Editors: You are encouraged to use this story in your publication. Please credit the author and DeKalb News Service as shown. And, please send two tearsheets to: Jim Killam, Department of Communication, Watson Hall, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL 60115.

1,150 words

Keeping first things first

By Christina Chapman
DeKalb News Service

PLAINFIELD - Noel Kufner's kitchen smells like paste. Her fingertips look like the edge of a rainbow, covered with blue and red paint. Her kitchen counter is covered with paper plates holding clay furniture to air dry.

Noel and her son, Adam, have spent their entire Sunday morning working on Adam's book report project. Out of a shoebox, paint and some clay, Adam was to make a scene from "Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets." Noel sat at the head of the kitchen table, painting a miniature couch.

After mixing colors, Noel begins reshaping a mini staircase when her youngest son, Cameron, comes plowing through the kitchen, dragging his coat and plastic bat.

"Ma, I gotta go play baseball."

"Okay, Cams. Wait for Dad."

Noel and her husband, Kurt, have been married for 16 years. They live in Plainfield with their sons Adam, who's 10, and Cameron, who's almost 6.

These days, family means everything to Noel. She's survived a near-death experience and lost her greatest role model … but in the process she's learned to slow down her busy life and enjoy what's truly important.

The day Cameron was born - Dec. 9, 1997 - was the scariest of Noel's life. She almost died.

A couple of days earlier, she and Adam had been in a car accident. When the police came to investigate, all of the people in the accident sat together in the police car. Noel and Adam were both fine, but after a couple of days Noel started to not feel well. In the middle of the night she went into convulsions. Noel and Kurt drove Adam to his grandmother's house and then raced to the hospital. At the emergency room, tests revealed Noel had Streptococcus A Phenomena. She'd find out later that she caught it by sitting in that police car with the other accident victims.

"When they said they had to take the baby, that was when it became apparent to me that something was really wrong with Noel," Kurt said.

Cameron was delivered and was fine. But Noel was getting worse. She'd developed a blood infection and would be moved to the Intensive Care Unit.

"And like a freight train it all went downhill from there," Kurt said.

Noel had developed Adult Respiratory Distress Syndrome and would need a ventilator to help her breathe. Doctors placed per into a medically induced coma so she wouldn't fight the ventilator. They feared she wouldn't survive, and told Kurt to call her family.

The next week, Noel's vitals slowly improved and her doctors knew she would pull through. She had a long road ahead, though, and didn't even see her new baby until he was almost a month old.

"The whole experience just made me appreciate having a family more," she said.

After Noel fully recovered, she made a big change in her life. She had been working at MTL Insurance full-time for more than 20 years, but now decided to go part-time.

"Kurt and I decided that we didn't have kids to see them twice a day," she said.
Noel now works about three days a week, giving her more time for her children and her husband.

"Now I have time for projects like these," she said, while pasting construction paper onto the shoebox.

"My mother would have been so proud."

Noel Kufner, a wife and mother of two, feels twice blessed. Not only by being given a second chance at life, but also because of the influence her mother had in making her who she is today.

Noel's mother, Minnette Verhunce, had five girls and one boy. She was the person Noel admired the most throughout her whole life.

"My mother never judged us, even when we were doing something wrong," Noel said.

When Noel and her sister, Lisa, were teenagers, Lisa came home dangerously high on drugs. Minnette stayed up with her all night, talking her down.

"She made us learn from our mistakes," Noel said.

Years later, after surviving her own near-death experience, Noel told herself that she would not take things for granted any longer. She saw her mother often, never thinking that the day she wouldn't be able to would be so near.

The day Minnette died - March 24, 2003 - Noel, Kurt and the kids had just spent the day at a Blackhawks' game. When they got home, Adam and Cameron spent the night re-enacting the entire hockey game. After settling the kids down, they put them to bed and later turned in themselves. The next day, Noel had planned on taking the kids to see her mother, so she wanted to get her rest.

About 2:30 a.m. Noel's brother, Mark Verhunce, called. Noel awakened and answered the phone on the first ring. All Mark said was that Minnette was gone and that he had called 9-11 and was waiting for them. He told Noel he would call her back after they arrived. That was it.

When Noel hung up the phone she was in such shock that she didn't hang it up correctly. She waited two hours for Mark to call back before she realized that the phone was off the hook.

About 4 a.m., her sister, Lisa, called. She told Noel that their mother had died.

Noel left for the hospital directly after the phone call. When she arrived at the hospital, Marky and her niece were waiting for her outside, crying. They took her straight to where her mother was, but let her go in by herself.

Everything became very quiet. When Noel entered the room her heart was pounding. She could hardly breathe.

"When I went into the room she was just laying there," Noel said. "She looked so peaceful. She didn't have any oxygen tubes on for the first time in a long time. She just looked so peaceful."

Mark had been taking care of his mother for years. He was now 35, but on his own for the first time and Noel's biggest concern.

"I'll do anything in this world to protect him," she said.

The loss of a mother for both Noel and Mark has resulted in the gain of a relationship between the two that neither one had ever thought possible.

"We talk more than we ever have," Mark said. "She worries about me more now. Sometimes I have to put a front on because she has enough on her plate. I don't want her to have to worry about me."

Noel has learned to pay attention to everything around her that was once just part of everyday life.

"She slows down a little more now to see what's going on," he said.

Ironically, losing her mother has made Noel a better mother.

"I'm more tolerable with my children," she said. "If she could handle six children, I should be able to handle my two."

Noel's mother is the only person she ever wanted to be like growing up. She credits her for the woman she has become and the mother she is turning out to be.

"If I could be half the woman my mother was, I'd be good enough," she said.

# # #