First and foremost, I hope people can say, "she was one of the kindest, most giving people we've ever known," and second, which would certainly make the giving part in the first more memorable, "she won the biggest lottery there ever was."
Hopefully, you smiled a little, although I mean every word about the kind and giving part. That is truly what I hope people will be able to say about me. To me there are no sweeter words in the human language than kind and kindness, and, of course, giving goes right along with kind.
It's been four years since we lost our beautiful daughter-in-law Jennifer to cancer. She was 44 at the time. She fought a long hard fight for almost exactly one year. In that year, she never once gave up the desire to live and we never once gave up praying for a miracle. We prayed for Jennifer to be healed and that prayer was finally answered on a Saturday morning when God took her home. I would have loved to have seen that beautiful face and that beautiful smile when God told her she was finally cancer-free.
A week after she died on a Sunday morning, we had a memorial service. The church was packed and several of her friends got up to talk about what Jennifer meant to them. I can't begin to tell you how often the words kind and giving were used to describe her. "There was never a kinder person... she never said anything bad about anybody...she treated everyone with kindness and respect...she would give you anything she had, if you needed it..."
It went on and on, and I couldn't help but smile through my tears. Those two sweet words were being used over and over to describe my beautiful sweet daughter-in-law. I knew she was a kind and loving person but to hear story after story of some of the kind deeds, like paying for former classmates to attend their recent class reunion who otherwise couldn't have come due to cost; like buying and donating toys and clothes every year so that some less fortunate family might have Christmas; like helping friends financially during hard times. She cherished animals of all kinds and not only was a dog rescuer but also volunteered her time at the local Horse Protection Society caring for abused horses. She treated every living creature with kindness. It was only fitting that she was a nurse by profession.
Jennifer touched a lot of lives in her short lifetime. What an inspiration. I'd like to be remembered like that, so that when I'm no longer of this world, my friends might say, "She was one of the kindest, most giving people we've ever known. She was a lot like Jennifer."
A week after she died on a Sunday morning, we had a memorial service. The church was packed and several of her friends got up to talk about what Jennifer meant to them. I can't begin to tell you how often the words kind and giving were used to describe her. "There was never a kinder person... she never said anything bad about anybody...she treated everyone with kindness and respect...she would give you anything she had, if you needed it..."
It went on and on, and I couldn't help but smile through my tears. Those two sweet words were being used over and over to describe my beautiful sweet daughter-in-law. I knew she was a kind and loving person but to hear story after story of some of the kind deeds, like paying for former classmates to attend their recent class reunion who otherwise couldn't have come due to cost; like buying and donating toys and clothes every year so that some less fortunate family might have Christmas; like helping friends financially during hard times. She cherished animals of all kinds and not only was a dog rescuer but also volunteered her time at the local Horse Protection Society caring for abused horses. She treated every living creature with kindness. It was only fitting that she was a nurse by profession.
Jennifer touched a lot of lives in her short lifetime. What an inspiration. I'd like to be remembered like that, so that when I'm no longer of this world, my friends might say, "She was one of the kindest, most giving people we've ever known. She was a lot like Jennifer."
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