My Friend Stephanie

This morning was the memorial service for Stephanie. Twenty-two days before she died she spent the entire day in the Emergency Room of the hospital because she had a migraine headache. After doing an MRI, the next day she was operated on to remove a tumor in her brain. Stepho (which was the nickname many friends used for her) and her husband were told by the doctors that she had a stage 4 fast growing tumor. After surgery the doctors told the family they had removed 99.9% of the tumor and the prognosis sounded quite favorable.

She was home from the hospital in just a few day. A little over a week after surgery she had a mini-stroke and was taken back to the hospital. Then she had a massive stroke a few days later while still in the hospital; she never recovered and died within a day.

Today each of her three adult children spoke, her sister spoke, one of her son-in-laws spoke, her mother-in-law spoke, her brother-in-law, who is a professional trumpet player, played "Amazing Grace." Her husband, Randy, spoke, and her Uncle Joe, who is a pastor, gave an inspiring message about the word "exit" and connected it to several Bible verses and then wrapped-up by speaking about C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia and spoke specifically about the final scene in the last book where all the characters throughout all seven books . . . well, I don't want to tell the scene if you've never read the book, but the scene in the book is spine-tinglying (and so was Uncle Joe's message). To hear that story retold at Stepho's memorial service was very touching.

The entire football team (from the Intermediate School where her husband is a history teacher) walked to the stage and one of them spoke about Steph and the "mom" she had been to all of them.

A group of almost a dozen people from where she had been employed for only a year walked to the microphone to tell of their wonder of Steph as an employee.

A video of many photos of her life was shown . . . so fun to see all the many phases of her life. Following the service was a major luncheon in the fellowship hall.

Today several hundred people gathered not because Stephanie had died, but because she had lived and she had poured her life into many of them. I am so glad I was there.

Good night from Southern California.
Rosie (& Mr. Fun), aka Carol