With no health insurance, Tasha's aggressive breast cancer diagnosis delayed [Savannah Morning News, Ga.]

Sep. 28—Latasha Holliman's family and friends wish they could have written a different ending to her story.

That rewrite might have included her completed novel about love and family finally landing with an agent who would champion her lush prose and complicated characters. Or, being the first to hold her sister's baby. It most certainly would have involved her growing old as she watched her three daughters grow into the bright, fierce women they already show signs of becoming.

But, on April 6, "Tasha" Holliman died from an aggressive breast cancer, one with a mix of both HR-positive and HR-negative cancer cells. She discovered the lump in February 2020, but because she worked as a freelance writer and part-time teacher, she did not have health insurance. Unsure of where to turn, she did not immediately seek medical care until four months later. By then, the cancer had metastasized. Holliman employed every weapon in her arsenal to fight the disease — a macrobiotic diet, a powerful and humorous blog, and finally chemotherapy.

In March, when doctors said there was nothing more they could do, her mother Arnita Harris recalled Holliman saying, "I'm OK, but I'm worried about my family."

True to form, Holliman always was mothering.

In fact, Brandi Benson, author of "The Enemy Inside Me" about her own battle with Ewing's sarcoma, often called Holliman, "Mother."

"She was — I can't believe I'm saying was — the epitome of a lady," said Benson. "Honest, loyal, nurturing, giving...," the adjectives just spilled out as she talked of the fellow writer she met during graduate school at the Savannah College of Art and Design.

Harris laughed when she learned of Benson's nickname for her daughter. "Even though she was the middle kid, she was almost like the big sister — always. She spent a lot of time bossing her [three] sisters around. She mothered everybody. She liked telling people what to do, and she expected people to listen to her."

It was easy to lean on her, according to Ariel Felton, a Savannah Morning News contributor, because "she always had a moment for her friends."

Felton and Holliman also met as SCAD classmates in a graduate fiction writing class. "During one of our critique workshops, she had written this really beautiful and haunting short story about a mom going through post-partem depression. It was written in this way that leads to a shocking conclusion, and I remember how we were so much in this character's mind and — it was just really beautiful. That's how we became friends."

The two women soon served as "accountability partners," sharing their writing with each other, making sure they were setting time aside for their craft.

"I thought I was Type A," said Felton. "She would call me at five in the morning to make sure I was up writing. It was less about feedback and more about encouraging one another."

Felton recommended Holliman as a potential writer for Beacon magazine when I served as its associate editor. After our first brainstorming session on the education issue — a topic Holliman knew well and was passionate about — I knew she was a keeper. She challenged pre-conceived notions, questioned approaches, and looked for solutions.

Her first article, about the epidemic of teacher burnout, examined the conditions that led to nearly half of all new teachers leaving the profession within the first five years. She explored how GED programs could help people move from poverty to self-sufficiency. Within the first month of the pandemic, Holliman took a hard look at COVID-19's early and devastating toll on people of color.

We had been working together for a year when she declined an assignment. "I have breast cancer," she said matter-of-factly, and over Zoom, we sat silent holding each other's gazes.

I have held onto her texts and emails, just as Felton has.

Her blog, so vulnerable and humorous is no longer online, but Harris said Holliman wrote it so others might understand what she was dealing with. "She wanted people to see her fight."

Because of the costs of treatment, Holliman and her daughters moved back in with her mother during her illness. During those months, Harris said they spent the evenings holding deep conversations about everything from movies and music to books and God. But the topic they returned to most often was her love of family.

"She never realized how special she was," said Harris.

Benson agreed. "She had such great things to accomplish, so much more in her, and I think she never got the break that ... she deserved so much."

Holliman's story doesn't end here, though. Her arc flows through the lives of her daughters — Teri, 13; Hayley, 9; and Alexandria, 2.

"They are strong," Harris said, "just like their mother."

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