On a Monday night in January, Liza Burke was traveling with her boyfriend from Athens to Atlanta to see a comedy show when one of their normal conversations turned unexpectedly deep. Weeks before she was suddenly diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor, Burke started thinking about how she wanted others to feel if she were no longer here.
“She was just like, ‘When I’m gone, the whole idea of a big, sad, solemn service, that’s not what I would want,’” her boyfriend, Leighton Clements, recalled Wednesday.
The University of Georgia senior, who died last month after being diagnosed with the aggressive brain tumor, always wanted there to be love and good energy, something she routinely provided others during her life. You could be sad, of course, but the 21-year-old wouldn’t want you to stay that way.
On Sunday afternoon in Athens, that request is being honored during a Celebration of Life at Terrapin Brewing Company planned by the “Athens Army,” a phrase coined by Burke’s mother Laura McKeithen to describe a group of friends, or “warriors,” including Clements, who stayed by her daughter’s side after the shocking diagnosis.
The celebration will be held from 2-5 p.m. outside the location, where people can share memories, attend a short service and listen to live music. Organizers are also working on having photos, bracelets and stickers that friends and family members can take home.
Just as she would have liked, it’s a way for people to come together and share a nice time in Burke’s honor. Another celebration will be held at a later date in her hometown of Asheville, North Carolina.
On Friday evening, UGA will honor Burke during its commencement ceremony, according to her friends and family.
“We’ll watch with thousands of proud families in Sanford Stadium as Liza is recognized for her degree and granted a moment of silence,” her mother stated online Wednesday.
Burke fell ill March 10 while on a spring break trip to Mexico with Clements and a group of friends. She was familiar with the location, having spent a spring semester there during high school with her mother teaching English to young children.
“She always said that Mexico was her favorite place,” Clements said.
Burke and Clements woke up that morning feeling great. They went to the gym before she complained of a headache at breakfast and went back to her room to rest, he said. Burke’s friends and Clements later found her there and couldn’t wake her.
The family was told at the time that Burke suffered a brain hemorrhage. Her mother arrived in Mexico the next day.
Burke spent three nights in a hospital in Cabo San Lucas. During that time, family and friends worked relentlessly to get Burke returned to the United States. They eventually got her admitted to the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida, where McKeithen lives.
Physicians there diagnosed Burke with a grade 4 tumor near her brain stem, McKeithen said. It was inoperable due to its location.
She underwent nearly a month of grueling radiation before the family met with her doctors and decided to stop treatment because she wasn’t responding to it.
At around 2:20 a.m. on April 28, Burke took her final breath and passed “into the next realm,” her mother said.
But Burke’s family isn’t looking back. For them, it’s about the future.
Even during the nightmare scenario, they still managed to remain positive, especially her mother, who had the strength to update the public with regular posts in the family’s online care journal — and continues to do so. Clements said remaining positive was excruciating, even impossible at times.
“Sometimes I just sit back and admire, because it’s pretty remarkable how they are finding a way to look at the bright side of things,” Clements said of the family. “Laura is so strong, Jack (Burke’s brother) is so strong. The whole family and friends that surround them are all so strong. I see where Liza gets her inspiring nature from, it’s from her family.”
One day at the Mayo Clinic, McKeithen’s sister-in-law brought a small trophy into the room with the words “Big Liza Energy” written on the bottom.
”Every since then, it’s been something that all of us have clung to,” Clements said. “Because that’s what her legacy is to me. Not optimism, or even love, it’s the energy.”
Clements felt that energy even on Burke’s worst days — and when he said goodbye to her. He said they had always talked about traveling together and how she was going to be his guide.
”And I told her, wherever she goes, go do some exploring, and you can be my tour guide there. She brought that energy right in that moment — and I know she heard me,” he said.
Burke’s older sister, Edie, died in 2008 due to the effects of a rare genetic disorder. Instead of flowers or gifts, the family is asking for donations to the Liza and Edie Burke Education Fund at The Foundation for the Carolinas.
The gifts will support educational opportunities for young people “through the University of Georgia and beyond,” according to the fund’s website. Clements said Burke’s mother has already reached out to a contact in San Pancho, Mexico, for the young students who participated in Burke’s classes when she was there.
“It’s perfect,” he said. “It’s doing what she would be doing if she was here. Helping people. Creating an impact. Inspiring. That’s just who she was.”
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