Kara loved a good party; scratch that—Kara loved a party, period. And if the party was mediocre, her presence would change it from a meh party to a hooray! party. It’s not that she was the life of the party; she simply brought life to the party. She engaged everyone, she opened her arms wide to include others in conversation, she matched personalities up for instant connections. She built community wherever she went, and parties were a favorite venue for this.
Kara Tippetts was instrumental in changing many lives during her battle with cancer. She became known as the dying woman who wrote a letter to Brittany Maynard. But she was much more than a letter. Kara had the gift of creating community and beautiful friendships. She wove people together and made it look easy. She believed in loving big, in pulling more people in even when she was weary and tired and fighting cancer. She was wise, often able to pinpoint a solution or speak into a problem without judgement. Throughout the time I knew her, she spoke into my life and the lives of thousands of others. Here’s a few things I learned from her that I’ll always hold close.
Several years ago, one of my uncles died suddenly: it was a shock. Yet my shock was nothing compared to what my aunt and cousins walked. We flew to Oregon to be with them and help and, well, eat. My family gathers for meals that bleed into the next meal. As we ate and laughed, we also began to wrestle with loss. All loss is grief, and all grief is a forced rearranging of life.
You asked for it!! This week on the Mundane Faithfulness Podcast, Jill and I answer questions from you, our readers and friends. We don’t have all the answers, but we share our experiences and what we’ve learned from showing up effectively and not so effectively…
From an article originally posted March 1, 2013…
I was planning on waking up and telling y’all how Jason pointed out that I had bed head this morning. I love it—I have enough hair to get bed head! But the events of our evening have overshadowed this happy, silly news.
Last night at 2am our garage door started going up and down, up and down several times. It really freaked me out. Jason ran down to shut it, he then worked to quiet my fears. He told me these weird things happen. I didn’t really believe him, and I worried over every sound in the night. I struggled for a long time to get back to sleep. I posted about what happened on Facebook so there would be some word of what had happened.
