Miles
Well-known member
- Mar 18, 2019
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His sister, Shari, was diagnosed with leukemia when he was just 4 years old. About two years later, as Shari went into remission, their mother, Rossalyn, got diagnosed with breast cancer.
At such a young age, Kareem didn’t understand what they were going through.
“I don’t remember a whole lot,” he says. “Just as a kid, not really knowing what was going on at that point, at that point in time. … It was shortly after my sister was in remission, so to go through that and see my sister being sick and not know what’s going on, but just knowing that we were constantly at the hospital — waking up and going to school from the hospital, coming back to the hospital and stuff like that — I just knew she was sick.”
His mother's cancer came back seven years later, this time in her other breast.
In the face of that, it would be understandable if Rossalyn would have to be a bit more distant as a parent, but she refused to let her fight dictate her life.
“She went through chemo, and even then, she still tried to still do what she was doing,” Jackson says. “She was always still involved. She was just always there. Still, through her fight, she always still put me and my sister first and took care of the family. She did everything she was supposed to do still, and that’s why I say my mom is definitely one of the strongest women that I know.”
To honor that strength and that of his sister, Jackson now pays it forward through his foundation with outreach programs. Jackson was active in Houston, visiting children’s hospitals for a Christmas in July gift-giving event and hosting a dinner celebrating women fighting or who have fought breast cancer, which is the most common type of cancer in American women, aside from skin cancers.