Ms. Banks managed to maintain a strict daily writing schedule for years, despite a chronic fatigue syndrome diagnosis in her 20s and at times crippling pain from a botched medical procedure for a prolapsed uterus from childbirth.
With the complications of mast cell activation syndrome, including drops in blood pressure, flushing, severe itching and rashes, Ms. Banks relied on countless alternative therapies, including reiki, hypnosis, emotional freedom technique and quantum healing and regression therapy.
In addition to her sister Amy, she is survived by her husband, her sons and another sister, Nancy Banks.
During the coronavirus pandemic, she found another form of therapy — poetry. Her first anthology, “Into the Ether,” is scheduled to be published this fall.
One poem from the book, “What He Did to Me,” begins, “That guy pulled out of his pocket/a Saturday Night Special,” and then details the crushing emotional fallout from the bullet that killed her father. But the loss also led to a rebirth:
I began to see God everywhere,
in my neighbor’s smoking chimney,
the crackle of melting frost,
the twist of a climbing vine,
the leap of a cat.
I saw God in every person who passed.
That’s what that guy did to me.
And I ought to be grateful.
