A sister’s legacy: Abbey Kaufling remembers twin sister Kate

LEXINGTON, Ky. (WTVQ) — “Just being able to have her with me, every single minute of my life was always really special,” says Abbey Kaufling who is Kate Kaufling’s twin sister.

20-year-old Kate Kaufling passed away on march 31st, of Osteosarcoma, a rare form of bone cancer.

It’s a battle she had been fighting for the past year.

“Kate was brought here to bring awareness and hopefully find more research and awareness for this terrible and aggressive disease,” says Abbey, and as she continues coping with the loss, she also hopes the legacy of Kate will continue to live on.

“When we got the diagnosis, we were obviously pretty shocked. She was never really sick or anything she did UK Dance Team tryouts weeks before we heard about her diagnosis. And so we all took as a shock of how a 20-year-old healthy athlete can have such a rare and aggressive form of cancer,” added Abbey.

She adds that even though her sister was battling the fight of a lifetime, she always continued to be selfless,” she always made the best out of every day.”

And even though the entire family was very upset, questioning why Kate, when she passed, “over the past few days I’ve realized that us coming from a normal family in Louisville, Kentucky. I think her being on so many pages and different outlets. It’s made me realize that I think Kate was brought here on this earth to bring awareness to osteosarcoma because it’s such a rare form of cancer. She really is a special person to me and to a lot of people.”

For the twins Abbey and Kate, dance was always at the epicenter.
Abbey is grateful she was able to continue sharing that with Kate.

“Kate and I danced together since we were probably four years old. And even my coach when we were really little at my Studio 360 would always say we were always on timing together, we always knew exactly what we were going to do next. So I think it’s really special, and especially at UK, it’s not common that you have siblings on the dance team together. So whenever she was having a rough practice or I was having a rough practice, we were able to scream at each other or scream with each other and laugh and eventually throw it away. So it was always nice to have someone especially very close to me on the team as well,” added Abbey.

Abbey just hopes to continue spreading the legacy of her sister and more awareness to osteosarcoma.

“I love her, and I’m always here for her. And I hope she’s watching over me and is proud of me,” she says.

A visitation for Kaufling will take place on Monday, April 8th, from 2pm until 8pm at Ratterman and Sons Funeral Home on Bardstown Road.

A second visitation will be held at the same location on Tuesday from 10am until 1pm, followed by the funeral service.

A GoFundMe page has been created to help the family pay for funeral expenses. So far, more than $100,000 has been raised.