Duluth teen with terminal cancer gets the party of her life, with hundreds of friends

DULUTH — The guest of honor paused to pose beneath a half-arch of black and purple balloons, her smile made wider by the thin red lipstick lines of her Joaquin Phoenix-style Joker makeup.

She grabbed her friends — a fashion-forward take on the clown from “It,” the lion from “The Wizard of Oz,” a devil, a black cat and was that Avril Lavigne in the baggy jeans? — and guided them to a small stage at Clyde Iron Works for more poses, more photos.

Shimia Nord, 18, has terminal cancer. In January, the Duluth East senior was told she had weeks, maybe months, to live. On March 1, she and upward of 400 friends, friends of friends and family members celebrated her high school graduation months early. The rite of passage couldn’t wait for the traditional spring celebration alongside her classmates.

The Make-A-Wish Foundation of Minnesota arranged the Halloween-themed party at the Lincoln Park warehouse-style venue. Nord was too ill on her birthday in October, so this party took on double duty. Nord and her inner circle took a neon-lit party bus to Clyde, where nooks were decorated in low light, with seasonal knick-knacks and shades of purple and black. A DJ arranged a soundtrack of fall favorites like “This Is Halloween” and “Ghostbusters.”

Those close to Nord describe her as honest, unfiltered, spunky, brave, hilarious, extroverted, likable and selfless. She’s someone who loves attention, “but in a good way,” according to her best friend, Amya Baasch.

“Hence, why I’m having the grad party instead of going to Aruba,” Nord said in the days before the event. “I’d rather go to Aruba.”

On the night of her party, she set out to connect with as many people as possible. Nord table-hopped, danced with toddlers and classmates alike, and spent hours at the photo booths alongside friends and relatives.

“I wanted the grad party so I could come together with everyone — so people could have a photo or say their last moment with me is good," Nord said.

***

A member of the Duluth East Dance Team, Nord spent nine months dancing through debilitating back pain, until it forced her to begin throwing up in the summer of 2023. Doctors at first attributed it to an injury, but later scans revealed a large mass on her left kidney. It was removed during emergency surgery and biopsied. The diagnosis: Renal cell carcinoma.

Three months later, during a checkup, doctors found a nodule on her lung that continued to grow and spread.

She went through more than a year of cancer treatments, but her tumors continued to grow. She suffered with side effects and illnesses. She had pneumonia twice.

Nord danced with the Duluth East team and Just for Kix, a local studio, when she was able. She went to high school dances, and worked at Grandma’s Boxcar in Canal Park and KeyZone in the summer. She kept up her grade-point average and continued to take college courses from the University of Minnesota Duluth through the state’s Postsecondary Enrollment Options program.

“She has amazed me so much in all of this,” said her mom, Rikelle Hendrickson. “She’s continued to plug around and not let it get her down. She has resilience.”

Hendrickson’s sister delivered the worse news on a fundraising site in mid-January. The cancer was aggressive. The tumors had grown, and doctors were trying to control Nord’s pain.

“They say she has weeks, maybe some months,” Danielle Peterson posted.

When Nord was handed her diploma last week, she had more than enough credits to graduate early and almost enough for her associate degree. She was accepted to 14 colleges. Her top two: University of Denver and St. Cloud State University.

“She gets stuff done,” said Dani Westholm, an English teacher at Duluth East who had Nord in her public speaking class last year — the lone motivated junior in a class full of seniors. Westholm, dressed like Princess Leia and taking photographs during Nord’s event, described her as a “phenomenal student” who is always looking out for others.

***

The party was festive, with just pockets of sadness here and there. In addition to graduation and a birthday, it hinted at prom or a wedding. The dance floor was full, bean bags were tossed, cupcakes eaten and selfies taken. Nord’s diagnosis was a contradiction to the teenager hopping from guest to guest, patting toddlers on the head, stationed at the photo booth.

She was the life of the party.

This what attracted her boyfriend, Ben Heffernan, to her two years ago, when they first started dating. Nord is smart and pretty, with a great smile, he said.

“I thought she was the funniest person I’d ever met,” said Heffernan, a freshman at the University of Denver currently taking online courses from Duluth.

Early on in the night, Nord took to a stage with a microphone and a prepared speech that she ditched because she didn’t want to cry. She told guests she was grateful for the lessons she had learned from everyone in the room, good or bad. She forgave people who had wronged her and owned her part in conflicts. Nord offered that no one should put their life on pause during times of adversity.

“Behind the scenes,” she said, “I do struggle to comprehend what’s happening to me.”

She received a standing ovation.

Baasch said she knows that Nord doesn’t show fear or sadness in public — which sets the tone for her friends.

“For me, it doesn’t seem real right now because it hasn’t sunk in,” she said.

Friend Sonya Skar said Nord hasn’t stopped living, so her friend group has decided to live along with her.

“I don’t think it’s fair to grieve her when she’s alive,” Skar said.

***

A steady stream of costumed guests flowed in and out all night: Several Woody characters from “Toy Story,” inflated frogs and dinosaurs, Scooby Doo, a couple of Elphabas, an iced coffee, Thing 1 and Thing 2, and at least one banana.

Nord wore a short black dress, a long green tie loose around her neck, black-and-white Nike shoes. Her hair and eyebrows were thick with green coloring; her Joker’s smile crept beyond the corners of her mouth.

At one point, Nord joined her sister Deon Hendrickson in “Space Between,” a song from the Disney movie “Descendants.”

“It’s about two best friends leaving and going down different paths,” Nord said.

“It made everybody cry,” Rikelle Hendrickson added.

As the night waned and a handful of volunteers dressed like “Where’s Waldo” cleaned tables, Hendrickson said she was thrilled with the event.

“She doesn’t want a funeral,” her mother said. “She wants another party. So I guess we’ll be doing this again.”