Karen Duffy Memorial

Friday, September 23, 2011

In Rememberance

Our hearts and our minds reflect on Karen's love and her life on this, the second anniversary of her death. God rest her beautiful soul.

Friday, November 20, 2009

Share Your Letters to Caroline!

Since Karen's death two months ago, our family has been reflecting on how to keep her legacy alive for her 4-year old daughter, Caroline, so that she can learn more about he mom as she grows up. We've settled on the idea of inviting friends, family, and coworkers like you to write "Letters to Caroline" using the comment function of this blog below.

What you'd like to share is up to you. You comments may run the gamut from hopes and dreams Karen had to simply reflections on experiences you shared with Karen during her life and/or work.

Thank you for taking the time to share your story with us - - and with Caroline!

The Duffy Family

Letters From Karen's Friends and Family

Reflection from Karen's friend, Mary Ann Deignan

Karen was a flattering representative of the Tuck community. She was thoughtful, intelligent, purposeful and kind. Her ambition was great but never overpowered her innate sense that a well balanced life was a happy life. She never conceded that success could be measured with a scorecard or a stopwatch and with quiet confidence she stepped to her own rhythm in the pursuit of a good life.

The strong community of the Tuck School attracted Karen to our world some 18 years ago. And she embraced the extended Tuck family long after graduation. At her funeral many of us wondered aloud who would take her place in the network of friends from the class of ’93. Indeed, who among us will fill the void and so thoughtfully remember every birthday, congratulate each promotion, celebrate the birth of new babies or acknowledge the death of loved ones. For many of us she was our glue, she kept us together, connected us to each other and to our past. And in her own charming way she shunned the shortcuts of recent technology in favor of the well timed phone call, just-in-time birthday card or thoughtful, handwritten Christmas note. Maybe a little like our friend it was old fashioned but genuine.

No doubt, despite her numerous professional and educational achievements, Karen’s greatest accomplishment was starting her family with the long anticipated arrival of Caroline. I used to joke with Karen that she won the baby lottery because despite some grisly beginnings in a Kazakh orphanage her precious bundle arrived stateside with big blue eyes, a wide grin and a full head of curly blond hair. And with Karen’s love and attention she grew into a healthy, happy little girl. Nothing in the world made Karen happier and her life with Caroline was a love story in the truest sense.

But sometimes even the happiest story ends too soon. Her life was too short and her time in our lives shorter still. We’ll honor her memory each time we put down the stopwatch and put away the scorecard and recall a story of Karen. Some of us will surely remember her mastery of the dinner party while stoking wood burning stoves at the Thetford ranch. Others may recall her extraordinary organizational skills that made our Winter Carnival a huge success. Perhaps your only memory is of that really smart girl who tutored you through accounting and made mountains of homework look easy. Me? I’ll remember a big, easy smile reflecting a happy heart, and that strong moral compass calibrated with Midwestern sensibilities that ultimately defined her life’s ambitions and yielded her greatest joys of friends, family and the happiness of a dream fulfilled, Caroline.

Reflection from Karen's brother, Ed Duffy

So there I was, standing in the rain, digging into the mud and clay with a small shovel, trying to make a hole to plant the yellow mums my friend, Mary Beth, had given me. It was comical. With every attempt I made to dig a hole, the mud clung to the shovel. I had to repeatedly take a second shovel to knock the mud off the first shovel to make any progress. The rain continued to fall, but eventually I had carved out a space big enough to plant the two mums and then got down on my knees to fill in the gaps around the flowers with the remaining clods of mud.

I was planting flowers at the grave of my sister, Karen to memorialize her birthday. I planted two bright, yellow mums, prayed, sat in a folding chair with an umbrella and tried to make sense of it all. Karen died three months ago in her sleep at age 42, leaving behind her beautiful 4-year old daughter. The cause of my sister’s death is still, however, unknown.

Recalling the way the mud clung to the shovel that day, made me think of how messy accepting death can be. In the face of death, our hearts cling to people, memories and mementos to survive and get through the pain. We try to resist our hearts breaking open and letting all the dirt spill out - - even though we know instinctively that’s what we need to do. We fear that when all the pain is gone, the truth that our loved ones are gone will truly set in. We’ll have to admit that we have no control over the situation and have no one to cling to for answers but God.

I’m learning that God provides the momentum, or the second shovel to help us get there - - to help us let go and knock loose all of the muddy hurt, fears, and loss that we can’t let go of ourselves. I know I’m not truly ready for him to knock all the mud loose but it’s happening little by little, in clumps, so I have to surrender, accept it, and cling to God for strength.

My sister Karen was a wonderful, loving woman, someone you could always count on. As the youngest in our family she was a bit spoiled, but I learned an important lesson from her in the process. One time I thought to myself one, “Why does she always get everything she wants? Well, she asks for it!”

As an adult she continued this practice by asking me to share several life experiences with her: travelling north to Michigan to spend a week with her at the beach, travelling overseas to visit relatives in Ireland, travelling cross-country to help her move to Chicago from New Jersey, and traveling half way around the world to a remote city in Kazakhstan to help her adopt her beautiful daughter, Caroline.
It was during these travels I got to know Karen best. She had an adventuresome spirit, a quiet desire to experience the best life had to offer, and an intimate desire to be present at whatever was going on in the moment. As travel buddies, we enjoyed each other’s company, made each other laugh, and found comfort and acceptance - - whether we were sharing Pringles potato chips and a Coke in Kazakhstan or Shepherd’s Pie and a Guinness in Galway.

Karen and I both pursued challenging careers throughout our lives and I think our friendship as siblings helped fill the emotional gap each of us had as single people who desired to be married. More than any other person in my family, Karen invited me to share these and other aspects of her life with me. After adopting her daughter, Caroline, I was regularly invited to Sunday dinners, outings to the neighborhood playground, or to sleep over at Caroline’s insistence.

Though I know how lonely Karen was at times as a single mom, she gave me one of the most concrete examples of inviting, unconditional love I’ve experienced in my life. She accepted me for who I was and just enjoyed my company.

It goes without saying that I will miss my sister, especially with the holidays coming up, but I am grateful for all of the ongoing prayers and support all of you have shown me and my family during this time of need. It gives us all hope that life will go on and the heaviness in our hearts will subside eventually, leaving behind warm memories in our hearts, and in our minds, the example Karen gave us of how to live a well-loved life.

Karen's Eulogy

Delivered by Karen Iacovelli:

My niece, Karen, was my namesake and my God-daughter. We shared a... special bond as soon as she was able to walk. Her mom identified us by calling her little Karen and me, big Karen, which stuck throughout our lives, even though Karen gew to be about a foot taller than me. I was AK to her and she was KD to me. We had a lifelong friendship, one that transcended the role of aunt and niece. That happened because when Karen decided she was going to carve her way into hearts, she just did it, and you were defenseless against her inquisitive, endearing, energetic charm. The words I have heard that most often describe Karen are: responsible, efficient, talented, sweet, generous.

In writing on the Memorial Blog, her 13-year-old cousin, Sam, said: "Thank you for everything you have given me. Even talking to you has brought joy into my life. I will never forget your stick-to-it attitude and more wonderful attributes than I can count." Sam and Josh are my brother Warren's twin sons, who lost their Dad five years ago. Karen and Warren were also "best buds" and had been for many, many years. When Warren was ill, Karen was often by his side chatting business and family, and chopping vegetables or rolling out pastry dough. We have a thing in our family for food, and little Karen learned early how to master culinary treats that delighted everyone lucky enough to feast at her table.

Karen was chatty, serious, pensive and playful. As a child, maybe a tad spoiled, but try scolding her against the magic of her blue twinkling eyes and ear to ear grin. Yes, she could wrap you around her finger. I think her brother, Ed, growing up in a house full of sisters, watched the impish Karen steal the show to his annoyance, but if he felt left out, he would be in for a big surprise years later as brother and sister connected in an unforgettable way.

Conservative and liberal, cautious and decisive. Karen had an uncanny sense of assessing obstacles and leaping beyond them. She spent the summer of 1982 with me at our farm in New York. I had decided to buy a horse, and she was very, very excited. I knew she had spent a lot of time learning how to ride and that she loved horses. But her aunt owning one? Well, for her it was like Christmas in July. The day Muffin the mare was to leave her old barn digs and come home with us, Karen and I strolled down the farm lane swatting each other with our crops, on our way to pick up this 16 hand, 1500 pound bundle of joy. As the reins were given to us, I fully expected Karen would eagerly hop up on the saddle but instead she said, well, I think we should just walk Muffin back up to the farm so she gets to learn the way home. Midway through the walk, with the two of us towing a horse behind us, I asked her to ride Muffin the rest of the way. "Well, Aunt Karen," she said, in the twang that always sounded like a question, "I've never learned to ride outside the ring..." Little did she know that I was terrified of this clomping monster. Karen never said she was afraid, but looking back, I guess she was, too. So, I just said, well, walk Muffin up to the barn because I think you're right, she needs to learn her way home. As I lingered on the lane, it took maybe five minutes for this determined 15-year-old to leap up on the saddle and ride the rest of the way without looking back. The student had become the teacher, and it was that year that I learned more from her and would for the rest of our lives as pals. That was Karen.

From Wall Street to Hinsdale, she was a woman true to herself. Loyal, steady, the person you want on your side, by your side. To talk with, to listen with. Cry, laugh and think with. She had her Dad's wit and Irish charm and her mother's multi-faceted artistic gifts. She was a sap for animals and a lap for little kids--a person you knew you could trust and count on during the tough times. She and her sister, Catherine, were best friends. And big sister, Suzanne, was the inspiration for Karen's lifelong love of music.

Jim, her former colleague in New Jersey, wrote on the Facebook Memorial that Karen was one of the sweetest and talented people I have had the privilege to meet. And Penny wrote: she was such a kind person. From Cheryl and Jody: Karen's move to New Jersey was a great blessing to us Jersey girls. Jody and I loved her like a sister. She was a gift. It was because of Karen that I chose to make that awful drive from where I live in South Carolina, rather than fly, to visit with my family in Connecticut, because she had the best rest stop in the country. We spent several times a year in her lovely, comfy Madison home on my way up north and on the return trip. It was something I always looked forward to doing, because we had our time alone.

We are all aware of Karen's impeccable resumé and her stunning achievements. But the most challenging role she assumed was her pursuit of becoming Caroline's mom. She deliberated adopting a child for a few years, worrying about the impact taking time to do so would have upon her career. As a single mom, making this choice was not easy. Karen, the responsible one, never did anything second rate. If she was going to do this, she was going to embrace it wholly. Which is exactly what she did. With an enormously supportive family, Karen crossed other boundaries to find Caroline in Kazakhstan. The journey of this amazing love story was chronicled on her blog, where anyone who knew what she was doing, was glued to the internet for the latest news from across the globe. While there was so much family support for her calculated leap of faith, it was her brother, Ed, that would find his life immeasurably changed by Karen's asking him to share the experience with her. So Ed did. Under primitive and often frustrating and fearful circumstances, Ed and Karen not only had each other, they had found each other. During a surprise phone call she made to me while in Kazakhstan, she said she could not have withstood the grueling emotional roller coaster of the foreign adoption process without her brother by her side. But she also said that Ed had served another very important role: he was the master spider killer. The only fear that she never overcame.

There are many Karen stories. But this one is the image I would like you to hold in your hearts. The day of Caroline's Christening, Caroline gew increasingly ill with a dangerously high fever. It was a cold, damp February morning in Madison, New Jersey and by late morning, Karen cancelled the service. By mid-afternoon, I drove Karen, cradling a very sick baby, to the emergency room where we spent the next ten or eleven hours with doctors and nurses trying to figure out what was wrong. Fluids were administered to this frightened baby girl and an equally frightened new mom. By nine or ten p.m., I went to the hospital cafeteria to bring some food back to the ER. When I returned, I found Karen sound asleep, she and Caroline snuggled tightly in each other's arms. It was that sight that told me more about my precious niece than any resume, any cooking class, and any financial expertise that had so defined her to so many people. This beautiful woman, smart and often fearless, was the essence of love and tenderness. I saw the window into her soul that night. All of us who knew Karen watched this new dimension of her unfold. She was kindness. She loved her daughter without effort and gave to all in a way that forever enhances our lives. It was her role as Mom that defined her more than any Ivy League degree or professional accomplishments. Inspiring, uncomplaining, unselfish.

Family and friends were everything to her. Karen was not without her hurts, worries and disappointments, but she faced them all with a determination to ride outside the ring, and not be limited to a life lived inside of it. If there is one thing we can do to honor her life, it is to help keep the memory of her alive for her little Caroline, and to let her know for the rest of her life how instantly, deeply and unconditionally her mother loved her.

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

College Fund Established for Karen's Daughter, Caroline

A college savings plan (529 account) for Karen’s daughter, Caroline, has been established as a way to commemorate Karen through her daughter’s future education. Many people had inquired how they could assist and, with the assistance of Karen's company, Allstate, in setting this up, we think this would be a great vehicle.

If you would like to make a contribution to Caroline’s 529 account, contributions can be made via check payable to “Bright Start College Savings Program FBO Caroline Duffy”. In the memo field of the check, please also include the account number (5000162497). Address is listed below:

Bright Start College Savings Program
P.O. Box 6498
Chicago, IL 60680

Thank you in advance for your consideration.

Friday, September 25, 2009