Friday, November 20, 2009

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.

No comments:

Post a Comment