Petra Fahie: Inspiring Others Until The End

ST. CROIX — Whenever she was in the hospital in Puerto Rico where she received treatment, Petra Fahie was the inspiration of the nurses. “The nurses in the hospital and everybody else that met her — they would come into the room and Petra’s face would just light them up; just her face alone,” said Rogier Fahie, Mrs. Fahie’s husband who stood by his wife throughout her illness of Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, or diffuse large B cell lymphoma disease — a cancer of the lymphatic system, which is part of the immune system.

Mr. Fahie’s wife had been diagnosed with the disease in January 2015, a curve ball that set the otherwise ordinary couple on an extraordinary journey documented in part by The Consortium, that would end with the passing of Mrs. Fahie on Friday, April 1, after a roller coaster year suffused with hope and disappointment. Through it all, however, and aside from the understandable moments of dismay and fear, Mrs. Fahie held her head high and her God even higher.

“She would encourage the nurses and the doctors because she would see when they were going through something, and then she’d give them a word of encouragement,” Mr. Fahie said. “And she’d find these inspiring quotes, go to Facebook every morning and send them to particular people everyday. It didn’t matter if she was in pain, she’d take up her phone and send the quotes, and 100 percent of the time recipients would reply back to her and say, ‘This is exactly what I needed; this is exactly what I’ve been going through,’ and I’d be there sitting and she’d just be laughing.”

Mr. Fahie himself would receive encouraging messages from his wife. “She’d say, ‘You’re there for me all the time, and if this is what I could do for you, that’s what I’ll do.’ As long as she felt you, she would send you these messages because that’s what she could give at the moment,” he said.

For Mrs. Fahie, the unimaginable journey began after diagnosis. She faced radiation, chemotherapy, constant travel between Puerto Rico and St. Croix –sometimes in a wheelchair. Infections, viruses, at times she could not work. A very funny and communicative person by nature, in the end, Mrs. Fahie could not even speak. But her faith in God, through her savior, Jesus Christ kept her going.

Mr. and Mrs. Fahie.

“I had to be her husband with everything that goes with husband. Her caretaker, her comforter, speaking to her, encouraging her in the rough moments and I’d keep her going as much as I could. Then when my own efforts could not go no further, her faith in God would do the rest,” Mr. Fahie said. He said his wife’s favorite words were “big up God all the time.”

In the end, though, the situation became near unbearable, and Mr. Fahie recalled seeing an expression of fatigue on his wife’s face; not the tiredness that comes with physical work, but rather the exhaustion of someone fed up with a particular circumstance.

“There was a look that my wife had one night on her face and I said, ‘babe, what’s the matter?’ She looked at me, looked at the TV, paused and shook her head. Then I said to her, ‘you’re tired of all of this, aren’t you’? This whole thing. The bed-turning, the medications, the up and down, the fevers.’ And she gave me that nod of affirmative: ‘Yes, I am tired.'”

Mrs. Fahie held on to the belief that God would heal her, “but we understand that God could deliver her in two different ways,” Mr. Fahie said. “And a lot of people wanted to see God do that miracle where she jumps up in the morning and we just see her making breakfast and be her jovial, normal self, but it didn’t happen that way. He chose to take her home; but she’s a believer so it’s not a problem. The Bible says that the angels rejoice when believers come home. So it’s a win-win, but for us as family and friends who remember her in a particular way, memories will always be both a blessing and somewhat of a curse to us. The blessing in that we look back and we can smile and laugh, but then there are times when we do look back and just weep because it’s that finality where we realize that the individual is no longer there.”

Mr. Fahie’s focus from the moment they learned of the cancer has been his wife. He completely neglected self-interest and focused on making sure — even in death —  that Mrs. Fahie is well taken care of. Her homegoing is being meticulously planned, and accounts setup for those interested in supporting Mr. Fahie, who has expended all his savings, can visit this Go Fund Me page, or send donations through Paypal to [email protected] or [email protected]. Sympathizers can also make checks payable to: Rogier A. Fahie P.O. Box 6985 Christiansted USVI 00823.