The Extraordinary Deaths of Mrs. Kip

Clara Kip, a 79-year-old widow with terminal metastatic cancer, arrives at Sacred Promise Senior Care Center in Kansas City on June 6, 2016. She has spent decades dreaming of São Paulo, Brazil, the city she and her late husband, John Kip, planned to move to before his death in a car accident in 1960. Her doctor diagnosed her cancer only a week earlier and refused to let her travel abroad. Spirited and irreverent, Clara insists on a room with a courtyard view and bonds with Jimmy, a young aide who becomes her first ally at the facility.

The novel alternates between Clara's hospice stay and the story of Aidyn Kelley, a young reporter at the Kansas City Star. Despite graduating with honors from the University of Missouri journalism school and winning the Sifford Award, a prestigious journalism prize, Aidyn has spent a year on minor stories under her supervising editor, Bella Woods. When her best friend, Rahmiya Hiraj, sends an email on Aidyn's behalf to the managing editor, Maper, requesting a chance to write features, the move backfires. Woods delivers a blistering reprimand and reveals she had been planning to give Aidyn a solo-credit July Fourth assignment. The stunt cost Aidyn the opportunity.

Woods then assigns Aidyn to write an obituary for a dying woman at Sacred Promise, a task Aidyn views as humiliation. The assignment, however, is a cover. Rosario Dia, Clara's social worker and Woods's former college dormmate, had discovered Clara's journals documenting her role in Kansas City's Laotian refugee resettlement. Woods recognized the material as a significant feature and believed Aidyn had the sensibility to write it, but Maper had restricted the young reporter to small tasks. The obituary served as a pretext, with the hope that Aidyn would uncover the deeper history on her own.

Aidyn meets Clara, who senses both the young woman's inexperience and her genuine tenderness. Clara shows Aidyn photos of John from their wedding and from the balcony of what would have been their São Paulo apartment, revealing she was married for roughly eight months and widowed for 56 years. Outside at the courtyard pergola, Clara plucks a yellow leaf and shares her philosophy: A leaf's most brilliant colors emerge only at the end of its life. She tells Aidyn she wishes she could die with "pizzazz," something memorable rather than a slow withering.

Flashbacks trace Clara's earlier life. After John's death, she spent years grieving and resenting the God her husband had loved. Her neighbor Martha Rendall, who worked in nursing, coaxed Clara into becoming a nurse's assistant at the University of Kansas medical center nursery, where Clara discovered a gift for calming fussy babies. When a baby named Elijah died suddenly, Martha urged Clara to keep loving while she had the chance. Clara converted to Christianity at age 36, a turning point that gave her a new vision for living. Though she tried to honor her and John's dream of serving in São Paulo, God repeatedly redirected her closer to home.

In the present, Clara reaches out to Charles Slesher, a dying widower across the hall, reading him the Psalms daily. As Aidyn returns for more visits, Clara proposes a deal: For every "extraordinary death" Aidyn suggests for the obituary, Clara will answer three questions honestly. During one visit, Aidyn reads Scripture over Charles at Clara's request. Charles opens his eyes wide, appearing to see something beyond the room. Clara whispers, "Ours is a God of new life, Miss Kelley" (133). Moments later, pain strikes and Clara collapses. Aidyn catches her, holding the unconscious woman while pressing the call button. When Clara regains consciousness, she sends a message through the nurse: "Write those down. They're good" (153).

Woods rejects Aidyn's standard obituary draft and tells her to listen for the real story. The central historical narrative then unfolds through Clara's storytelling and journals. In May 1975, Clara encountered Mai Khab, a weeping woman at the medical center whose husband, Mahasajun Khab, was a Laotian army officer stranded in America for training when the Communist Pathet Lao, allied with North Vietnam, seized control of Laos. Their two children were trapped in the country with their grandparents. Through Red Cross coordination, the children were evacuated across dangerous terrain and the Mekong River, through a refugee camp in Thailand, and finally to Kansas City in September 1975.

Clara and Mai built the New Life Christian Mission, which supported resettled Laotian refugees. Clara persuaded a hospital manager to hire refugee men who did not yet speak English, and the two women recruited private sponsors, eventually resettling 21 families. The refugees formed their own congregation, Hope Church, in Olathe, Kansas. In 1983, Mai and Mahasajun departed for Thailand to serve as missionaries. Clara lost contact with Mai within two years.

Clara gives Aidyn a decade's worth of personal journals. That night, Aidyn reads entries that are fervent prayers documenting Clara's transformation from grieving widow to faithful warrior. On Thursday, June 9, Charles Slesher dies with Clara at his bedside. She helps wash his body afterward, sobbing in the nurse's arms: "I'm so tired, honey" (237). The next dawn, Clara wheels herself to the courtyard for a final sunrise and prays, "Please, Father, let me come home" (245).

During their Friday visit, Clara reveals she has known about Woods's scheme all along. She confides her one wish: to see São Paulo, even for an hour. She also calls Maper directly, with Rosario's help, to advocate for Aidyn's feature. That night Clara's pain escalates, and she accepts morphine for the first time. By Saturday she can barely move. Aidyn brings three gifts: a coxinha, a Brazilian croquette John once described to Clara; a virtual reality tour of São Paulo, during which Clara sobs at the mountaintop view from Pico do Jaraguá; and a visit from members of Hope Church, who share how the mission's legacy grew in ways Clara never knew.

After the visitors leave, Clara gives Aidyn a final gift: Psalm 16:8. She has Aidyn memorize the verse, calling it her "sword." She warns that the world will bring sharp pain but urges Aidyn to return light for darkness. After Aidyn leaves, Clara tells the nurse, "I'll take that full dose now" (312). An email from Mai's grandson, Daniel Khab, confirms that Mai was forcibly repatriated to Laos by the Thai government in 1985 and killed. Aidyn shares this news with Clara during a later bedside visit.

On Monday, Woods tells Aidyn that Maper has approved the feature for online publication. That same day, Rosario calls to say Clara has fallen into a coma. Aidyn visits daily, reading Psalms aloud. The night nurse explains that some people refuse to let go with a loved one present. Aidyn makes a final visit, weeping openly and thanking Clara for helping her find a life that matters.

Clara dies on Thursday, June 16. Aidyn completes the obituary, whose final line reads: "Let it be said that she died in the most extraordinary way possible. Clara Kip died while loving" (351). The funeral takes place the following Monday at Prairie Bible Church, outdoors under cottonwood trees, as Clara designed it. Cookies are served on yellow napkins. No one wears black. The pastor calls the service a "birthday party" into heaven. Aidyn, her feature article having gone live that morning, tilts her face to the sky.