By Patricia M. Hammock, M.Ed./AET
D
r. Chantrise Sims Holliman is a woman of herculean strength and unimaginable resiliency who has thrived through circumstances which would have toppled most others. Dr. Sims Holliman, with an earned Doctorate in Education in School Improvement, whose dissertation topic was Emotional Intelligence, was a full-time educator living her best life in in the spring of 2018. She was gleefully married to her husband of 10 years, Reverend Carson Holliman, Jr., Pastor of New Grant Chapel AME Church in East Point, Georgia. She was demonstrating excellence as the Director of professional learning for a set of charter schools in Atlanta. Dr. Sims Holliman was a loving mother to her children, bonus children, and to her students, whom she loved as her 24
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own. Chantrise ate healthy, drank green smoothies, stayed hydrated with water, ran ļ¬ve miles per day, participated in 5K and 10K marathons and was mindful of her stress level. Although, diagnosed with systemic lupus in 2006, Dr. Sims Holliman continued to thrive without an inkling that her life would soon be threatened. The only precursor to her impending life-changing illness was a brief bout of vertigo in the weeks prior. Though she thought the vertigo may have been related to her lupus, when she saw her physician, her blood pressure, which had always been 120/80, was sky-high. She was prescribed blood
pressure medication; purchased a blood pressure cuff; was compliant with her medication; monitored her health and continued living life ā¦. until March 23, 2018. Chantrise suffered what is grimly known as a āwidow-makerā heart attack where she coded nine times as doctors sought to stabilize her and was not expected to live. Within 24 hours of his wifeās heart attack, doctors told her husband he should ask the family to get there as soon as possible. Reverend Holliman called Chantriseās best friend and her daughter, Astede, who was a junior at LSU at the time. Chantriseās best friend
