“Dear God. We love you Father. We come to you today to praise you for all that you do for each of us everyday. For things that we might not even notice. Things that we don’t understand to be blessings, but when we look back it is clear that, Yes, that was a blessing too. Lord a common thread in all of us that are sharing this prayer to you today, is the love we feel for Karen. That love will never stop, Lord. You made Karen into such a special person. A person so unique to us; in her spirit, her love for others and how she showed so many of us how to love You even stronger, that it is hard to imagine how we will ever replace her in our lives.

Father God, we need your help today. We are all very happy that Karen’s spirit, absent the body, has gone to Jesus. The pain of not having her here with us is a very, very heavy load for some of us to handle on our own. We can only get so much help and comfort from the family and friends that each of us have reaching out to us. We thank You for that support that you have surrounded us with. Right now, Lord, we turn to you for the extra help we need to lift the pain from our hearts. We give it to you, God. We give you our pain, so that we may remember Karen only for all the good things about her, with no regrets that she is with you now. We praise you that she was part of our lives for what ever time we had her. Please take our pain, Father. Take it from her family, her friends and all the people that Karen’s journey of life touched here on Earth. Leave us with only the happiness that was given to us by You when you placed Karen in our paths. We know you will lift those of us with heavy hearts today, God, and we thank you for it. We love you, Jesus. Our love for your child, Karen, will live on as an example to us all.

As we remember Karen, we thank you, Jesus. Amen”

To my Karen: I love you.
To her followers: Thank you. The funeral services were this morning and I have stayed busy ever since and it is almost midnight. I wanted to get home to and write this message to thank everyone. And I do mean everyone. Those that were there and those that were thinking of us. It was an amazing service from where I sat. Some people didn’t have seats at all. The chapel was filled to capacity. People were standing along the walls. Even more were in the hall looking in. I have video but have not had a chance to watch it yet. I have still shots, too. Special thanks to my brother Darrell and his wife Holly for helping with that. Thanks to our pall bearers; Darren McIver, John Sprague, Gene Cornelius, Mike Giese, Keith Furbee, Bill Fitzgerald and Carlos Isaziga. Jack Reese of Jenks Avenue Church of Christ led the service. He has known Karen for a long time and extended family (Randy Wright) and her children Randy and Heather still go there. Jack did a great job and delivered a wonderful eulogy that honored Karen’s life but mostly her strength through the past 15 months. He remembered, as well did I, that when Karen was being taken on a gurney to surgery on September 23, 2009, both he and Carlos Isaziga caught up to us in the hallway before we made it into the surgery area. The transporters stopped and gave the four of us a moment to have a prayer. Surgery went well but two weeks later we found out that there were Leukemia cells in the tissue they had removed. He also recalled seeing Karen and I as we joined church service one of the Sunday’s that we were able to be in Panama City after her treatments had been going on a few months. What he noticed the most was not the colorful scarf but her smiling face as many of her old church family gathered around her, letting her know how much they loved her and were praying for her. That happy, smiling and beautiful face is what most people tell us they will always remember. Her family and I are very pleased that so many of you think of her that way because it is how we will always remember her, also.

There was a very heavy rainstorm happening at the end of the service which I felt was perfect! Seriously. It meant that rather than load up and go to the grave site, we were able to stay at Southerland. This gave people one more chance to see our sweet Karen and then talk with the family in the lobby. Another blessing for our family. We would like to let every single person who attended the service know what your presence meant to us. Whether it was because they knew Karen personally or were just there to show how much they cared for one of the family and felt the sadness that comes from losing a loved one, we were very touched by your support and love. I wish I could stand in front of each of you one more time, look into your face and hug you again. Especially the people who I did not actually get to greet last night or today. Wow! It was so crowded!!

If you don’t mind I would like to recognize three other specific groups that many of our guests belonged to. Eastgate Christian Fellowship is another church family that Karen has belonged to and still had ties to. Jacob, Dylan and their Dad Dennis Gallagher still go there. It is a fantastic church and their pastor, Rob Woodrum, was at the service as well. Karen’s parents have been part of the church family at Youngstown Baptist Church for a few years. There were many from there that came to see us as well. We were blessed to have Campus Pastor – Joe McLendon, there, too. The local Realtors turned out in mass. I had been a Realtor myself for 11 years and then worked at the Association office for 5 years prior to Karen’s diagnosis. Karen was able to attend one or two events a year with me for about 4 years. Not that many times when you think about it, but she had met many of the members with me. Both members that knew her and those that did not attended to offer me words of encouragement, understanding and support.

There were over 40 beautiful floral arrangements and plants. Thank you all so much.

A memory page has been created with a slide show with Karens song. The link to the Memory page is

https://karensday.com/?page_id=828

Visitation services will be on Tuesday, December 4, 2010 from 4:00 – 6:00PM.
Chapel service will start promptly at 10:00AM on Wednesday, Decemeber 5.
Please come early if you did not make it to Visitation. We will start arriving around 9:00AM.

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Don: New Years Eve Karen went to the emergency room at BMC. We went around 10:00pm. She was feeling weak and felt like she needed oxygen and also maybe her sugar was low. Some where around 12:30am we said “Happy New Year” and she remarked that she made it to 2011. After they did some lab work and took xrays and did a CT with contrast of the lungs, they decided to admit her. Shortly after getting into her room her heart stopped. They revived her with chest compressions and she is now on a ventilation tube and doesn’t respond to anything. She does swallow once in a while, that is good. Prayers are needed for her to fully come back to us. We are not really sure why the heart stopped. Basically it seems to have just slowed down and stopped. It may have had something to do with electrolytes being low, compounded by the many other issues that have been brought on by the treatments for the Leukemia. We may know more later.
– Dear God. Karen’s work here is not yet done. Please give her the time to complete the tasks that you have set before her. Please let her wake up so we can all tell her one more time, how much we love her.