Today March 3rd was a small closure after the untimely death of my older sister, Caroline.
The Lighthouse Baptist Church in St Louis Missouri had a memorial service for her at 7 PM tonight. There were about 300 people that showed up from 3 different churches. One of the churches that came was a 3 hour drive away.
Caroline and Jim had attended Victory Baptist before moving to St Louis. The other two chuches were from this area.
The support and kind words about my sister were wonderful. I had always said that she spoke what she thought and everyone here agreed. She said just what she thought. They all loved her sense of humor and said she was so much fun to be around.
Caroline loved life - and even though her health hasn't been good for many years she attended all the church functions and was a great cook for church dinners, ladies retreats and church camps.
We found out she was a member of the Red Hat Society here in St Louis, something that came as a surprise to my parents and I. She loved Stampin Up which is a group that gets together and makes cards for all occasions.
She did not have any grandchildren of her own so she took care of a lady named Christine Turner (Tina) when she was a baby and has since took care of Tina's four children when each were born.
There was a young girl that Caroline had told me that had adopted she and Jim as her grandparents. i got to meet her and hear about how much she loved Caroline and Jim.
We met Pastor Keith who is a quiet spoken Pastor of her church that truly thought Caroline was a wonderful asset to their church family.
Her best friend Brenda was beyond a friend. She and Caoline have known each other for 10 years. Brenda became so close to them that she knew more about their needs then we ever did.
She has helped with their medical needs by making sure they were taken care of. Brenda was the one that did all the work on setting up the memorial. She set up the displays with photos, poster boards of photos and placed all of Carolines cooking prizes and ribbons on the memorial table.
Mom, Dad and my Aunt Patsy bought a large bouqet of fresh cut flowers for the table and my family bought another one of roses to adorn the table.
The family needs help with medical and funeral expenses and the church took care of all but what mom/dad and I paid. Pastor Keith told me tonight that with the offering received tonight that the funeral part is paid for. The rest of what will come in will be given to Jim and JC (Jimmie) to help with other medical expenses that will be coming.
A lot of people did not understand why we did not have a regular funeral - one was the cost, but the most important was Caroline would not have wanted people to see her broken body. She wanted them to remember her the way she was. Spirited and onry.
That is the update for tonight. We will be returning to Wichita tomorrow afternoon after getting some much needed rest. This has been a very long week and a half.
Thank you for all your thoughts and prayers, please let them continue. Jim's health has gone down hill with him trying to help Caroline - has not been taking care of his dailysis as he should have been and now has a very bad infection in his stomach where his dailysis is done. He goes to the kidney doctor this week.
Thank you again for all the love shown; especially Brenda and Pastor Keith.
Caroline was on disability and Jim is on dailysis - he can not work very much at all and now with her disability not coming in anymore he really needs the help.
Pastor Keith said any other donations (in lieu for flowers) should be sent to me and I will get it to Jim.
Any donations can be sent to me and they will be sent to Jim. We will make sure he gets all funds sent for him. They don't have a checking account so I will send a cashier's check to him.
Tonight was a small closure to a very long ordeal for him. They had been married almost 44 years.
My address is:
Sandy Keathley
115 W Hazel Ct
Wichita KS 67217
PS:
Due to the stress of it all - we will not be having a memorial in Wichita. That was decided after we got home. Thank you for your understanding.
