Booher BanterBusiness Communication Consultant

Three weeks ago, I was helping my friend Karen and Paul pack up and move out of The Steel Magnolia House, the B&B they were selling so they could focus on Karen’s struggle with the cancer that had invaded her body 18 months earlier.  As I finished taping up the last box of items from the top of her closet while she looked on to "supervise," she called me closer to her bedside and took my hand.  "I’m not having a funeral, you know." 

"You’re not?"  I asked.  I was puzzled as to where this conversation was leading because she had long since accepted the fact that her illness was terminal.

"No."  Long pause.  "I’m having a celebration.  And I want you to speak, if you think you can."

I nodded and the words finally came: "I’d be honored." 

But the task proved difficult.  Not because she had not lived a life worth celebrating—she had!  Not because I wasn’t accustomed to speaking—I am.  Not because I don’t know how to craft a speech—I do.  But the communication challenge in such a situation is to capture the soul and spirit of someone you love deeply, … to be delivered in a few short moments, … under emotional duress, … while bringing comfort to other friends and family.

I delivered her eulogy on Sunday and returned to work Monday.  Not really being in the mood for a "how to" piece, I thought instead I’d just provide a model as my gift to Karen by memorializing her life in some small way.  Here it is…

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Generous…  Loving… People-centered…  Gracious… Vibrant… Many adjectives might describe Karen.  But none of these quite captures her total spirit.  So I’ve searched for an all-encompassing phrase, and here’s what I’ve come up with:   She was “the refreshingly unexpected.”  Now, I know that’s a rather vague phrase, so I’m going to try to fill in the details…. 

When I think of Karen, I picture those pursed lips, that infectious laugh, that twinkle in her eye, that mischievous grin, and that bent always to do the unexpected—the opposite of what most people would do.  When the Bible says that God has every red hair on our head numbered––well, maybe it doesn’t say RED hair––and that He knows the plans He has for us before we are born, that certainly becomes obvious when you think of Karen.  Her individuality stood out.

For starters, most REALTORS want to work with sellers because they say it’s easier—less time required to take a listing and you don’t have to traipse all over the countryside showing people houses.  But Karen, on the other hand, always preferred working with buyers.  When I asked her why one day, she said she just loved helping people find their dream house. She always got such joy out of just helping people.  You understand why she was always a top agent in the DFW area.

PARENTING was another issue where she often did the refreshingly unexpected.  These days, many parents are telling their kids not to bother them when they’re busy.  But Karen’s life always centered around her family, particularly her kids.  She was so proud of Tim and his successful career—always bragging about him to her friends. 

And I can’t remember a Friday or Saturday night when Paul, Karen, Vernon, and I went out to dinner or a movie or grilled a steak in the backyard when Tim or Jenny didn’t call—Jenny, at least 3 times. The conversation on our end usually went something like this:  “Where are you?  Who are you with?  When will you be home?  If you change locations, call me back and tell me where you are.”  (That was the reason for the 3 or 4 calls every evening—Jenny and her group of friends moved around a lot.)

In fact, I brought along with me a poem that Jenny, at age 17, wrote to her Mom on Mother’s Day.  Karen treasured it, and gave me permission to include it in one of my books:  I thought it might be comforting both to Tim and Jenny to hear it again today—as they remember all the words and acts of love through the years.  Jenny called her poem Thanks for Everything, Mom.

Thanks for Everything, Mom

• Thank you for always giving me a second chance.
• Thank you for telling me to read the fine print before I sign anything.
• Thank you for not taking off the training wheels until I asked.
• Thank you for smearing sun block all over my face.
• Thank you for being just as surprised as I was at six A.M. on Christmas.
• Thank you for always including me in the conversation at the dinner table.
• Thank you for not buying me everything I asked for.
• Thank you for making me wear my seat belt.
• Thank you for accepting my collect calls.
• Thank you for letting me stay up late to watch the end of a movie.
• Thank you for not finding me within the first few seconds when we played a game of hide-and-seek.
• Thank you for riding with me when I got my driver’s permit.
• Thank you for reading my favorite book over and over.
• Thank you for letting me stay home from school even when I was only a little bit sick.
• Thank you for ordering my school pictures.
• Thank you for driving me to the movies and then picking me up again.
• Thank you for buying Valentine’s Day cards for everyone in my class.
• Thank you for not letting “everyone’s doing it” be a good enough reason.
• Thank you for not saying, “You ask too many questions!”
• Thank you for warm clothes right out of the dryer.
• Thank you for thinking the weeds I picked for you were beautiful.
• Thank you for always displaying the cards I made you.
• Thank you for always inviting my friends to stay for dinner.
• Thank you for showing me I was wrong when I insisted there was nothing to do on a rainy day.
• Thank you for being there whenever I needed you the most.

That letter tells you what kind of parent Karen was.

Not only as a parent, but as a FRIEND, Karen did the refreshingly unexpected as well.  For example,

I call it “property patience.”  Vernon and I got the itch to mow a new lawn while Karen and Paul lived in Dallas, so she was going to help us find acreage in the country.  So for about 3 years, she’d periodically find property and drive us out to look at it.  We never found exactly the right spot.  But she had the ultimate patience about it. When we packed Karen’s things back in November to move out of the B&B, she got teary-eyed, expressing her thanks for the help, saying she was sorry she wouldn’t ever be able to repay us.  I told her that, by my account, we still owed her about 3, maybe 4, more moves just to break even on that moving deal.

As a friend, she knew how to open herself to others and intimately share her deepest thoughts:  We discussed everything from business decisions, to finances, to dreams for our kids, to the Bible.  She was the same with many friends.  The Proverbs say, “To have a friend, be a friend.”  Karen took that verse to heart.

When I think of Karen as a PERSON, her sense of humor comes to mind.  She always found humor in the unexpected.  When running the bed and breakfast, most owners would be irate at obnoxious guests.  But Karen always saw the light side.  Their antics didn’t deter her from a business that she loved—serving people.  She treated guests at The Steel Magnolia House as if they were family members—and most of them felt that way by the time they left at the end of the weekend. They’d frequently send back gifts and cards and called to check on her after they left.  In fact, several former guests are here today.

Talking about her sense of humor, I remember one of her favorite funny lines:  Most women look forward to cooking for their grandchildren.  Karen and I, on the other hand, used to laugh about having so little time to cook as working women. Years ago, she used to laugh and say that when she had grandchildren and they were hungry, she’d tell them:  “Honey, just go stand by the car….  McDonald’s is right down the street.”  … I’ve always thought it ironic that she later bought a B&B and wound up cooking breakfast for 8 every weekend.  The refreshingly unexpected.   

She still had her sense of humor until the very end.  The weekend she and Paul were moving out of the B&B, we found a plaque naming her the Cookie Mom of Tim’s cub scout troop.  Here’s the story behind that.  She got so tickled, telling us how she thought she was just going to be baking a few cookies.  Instead, she wound up warehousing boxes and boxes and boxes of cookies—and then almost spent a fortune, kicking money in the kitty to cover the boxes of Thin Mints Tim kept eating!

The refreshingly unexpected…. Most people spend their life getting things; Karen spent her life giving things.  She loved to garden.  So everywhere she’s lived—Houston, Grapevine, here—she has given people flowers and bushes for their gardens—and planted trees and bushes to leave behind as she moved away.  Again, the last time we were here in Natchitoches, she sent plants home with us for our yard.  That habit serves basically as an analogy of how she spent her years—giving herself away.  Planting in other people’s lives.  She and Paul—
• Working with disadvantaged kids in an apartment ministry in Euless
• Going on a mission tip to Burma
• Directing a Bible study department at their church in Grapevine

Most people—when they’re facing imminent death—are withdrawing inward, conserving their energy.  But what did Karen do?  The unexpected:  Go out and buy a new house!  Just ten days ago, she was shopping for furniture!  She wanted to live long enough to decorate a new home and help Paul get “settled in” there for life without her.  Even facing death, her attention was outward.

The refreshingly unexpected.  Most people take good things for granted; they gripe and complain over the least little things.  Not Karen.  Her life was always filled with gratitude.  As many of you know, this last bout was only one of several struggles with cancer.  In each situation, including the pain she suffered this last year, she’d toss complications off with something like, “Oh, well.  If that’s the worst that ever happens to me, that’s no big deal.”

Every time she called, she talked about feeling “so blessed” that she had Paul to take care of her, her family around who loved her so much, that her Sunday School class was praying for her, that her neighbors came so often with food that she hadn’t cooked in more than a year.  She had a 3-foot stack of cards still saved the day we packed her up to move.  In other words, she received love so well and felt grateful for God’s hands on earth.

And then there’s the big “Why me?” question most people ask, when difficulties come.  But when Karen first got her diagnosis, I remember her saying to me, “Dianna, I don’t understand why me.  But God knows why He put me here and what He wants me to get done before I die.  So I guess He’ll leave me here long enough to get it done, and that’s that.”  She’d laugh and say, “I’m a wimp when it comes to pain, but I’m not afraid to die. I know where I’m going.”  She was accepting, gracious—without bitterness.  Grateful for the life and experiences she’d had.

The refreshingly unexpected.  The last time I saw Karen and was helping her pack up her things to move out of the B&B, she called me over to her bedside.  Her lips were pursed.  She had that mischievous grin and that twinkle in her eye.  She said, “I’m not going to have a funeral.”  I said, “Oh?”  She said, “No,…  I’m going to have a celebration!  And I want you to speak, if you can.”

I have a feeling that she’s enjoying her celebration today and has been laughing along with the rest of us at the memories we’re all sharing of her life this weekend.

In John 10:10, Jesus says, “I’ve come that you might have life and have it more abundantly.”  Karen certainly claimed that promised.  She crammed more into her 55 years than most people in their 95 years.

Let me wrap up this way:  At the Christmas season, we’re rushing to buy Christmas presents on earth.  But Karen is still doing the refreshingly unexpected:  Celebrating her presence—P.R.E.S.E.N.C.E.—in heaven.

So Paul, Tim, Jenny, Nathan, Sheila, Laurice, Mr. and Mrs. Allbritton, . . . as these last few most difficult months fade from memory … and are replaced by the more pleasant memories of the happier times you’ve shared, … when you have birthdays, … Christmases, … anniversaries, … consider her presence… and your memories of the refreshingly unexpected.

Karen was truly the virtuous woman of Proverbs 31.  As the passage says, her husband, children, family, and we her friends praise her for a life well lived and a God well served.

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