MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – After three weeks in the hospital, a 34-year-old mother with cancer returned to a burglarized home on Monday in southeast Miami-Dade County. Her medications, computer, clothes, shoes, and sentimental jewelry were all gone.
Kerria Hixon-Gibson was first diagnosed with cancer in 2017. She also suffers from diabetes and asthma. Her 15-year-old daughter, Da’Kerria Richardson, who also has asthma, and her mother, Gwendolyn Hixon, have kept her in the fight for the last five years.
“She is battling brain cancer in three places in her brain, and she had her double mastectomy and she has fluid, and a little cancer in her spine,” Hixon said through tears.
Hixon-Gibson had been wanting to move out of a public housing complex in the area of Southwest 127 Avenue and Moody Drive. The two-bedroom apartment she shares with Da’Kerria near the Homestead Air Reserve Park has one wall-mounted air conditioning unit. She needs central air conditioning.
This week, their desperate desire to move somewhere else grew.
“I smelled drugs and it smelled like cigarettes,” Hixon said.
When they walked into the kitchen, they found a hole in the ceiling. Hixon said a thief first broke through the roof and the attic to get inside and open the door.
“They took all of my needles, all of my insulin. They took my pain medicine. They took medicine for my nerves,” Hixon-Gibson said.
Hixon said she fears the repercussions of the crime. Hixon-Gibson was already struggling emotionally, physically, and financially even before the burglary.
“She was ready to give up the past week. She said, she ‘Can’t keep going through all of this’ — and then for this to happen,” Hixon said.
Da’Kerria realized the heartless thief stole a Pandora bracelet with charms that her late aunt had left her.
Hixon-Gibson said she is still hopeful. With all of her belongings gone, she had a message for the burglars: “I forgive you. God forgives you. You will reap what you sow. It was materialistic, it hurts, but you can’t take my joy.
“I have got so much to fight for.”
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