This story was originally published on May 17, 2022. It was included in a year-end list of SI’s best stories of 2022.
After she learned she was dying, Esther Lee had to make some calls. She spoke with Venus and Serena Williams, her brother and her sister, her friends and some other clients. One of the last and most difficult was Shaun White. Esther was standing in a field in the heat somewhere in Los Angeles in late July 2020. He answered quickly, excited to hear from her, but then she told him her news, and he started crying.
Over the first half of the year, Esther had lost her appetite, her abdomen swelled, she struggled to breathe and she was always tired. That July, a series of tests and scans revealed a tumor the size of a cantaloupe in her abdomen, with additional lesions on her lymph nodes, liver and the bones of her spinal column.
