Rachelle’s Story
Karen Sue. Sue-Dee-Dee, as her brother called her. To this day, I don't know if she had any other nicknames. Did she like them, dislike them? She carried the maiden name Sorter. Her married name was Yutzy. She wore many titles. Wonderful daughter, sassy sister, treasured friend, doting wife. She has 10 grandchildren that call her Nana. To me, and my three younger siblings, she was Mom. The best there ever was, we will all four always say, until the day we die, too. Here is just a small part of Karen's life story, as I know it to be.
She was born on May 27, 1953. She grew up on a farm in Clifton, Colorado, where her daddy raised beef, and she had so many different pets, from a dog to an owl. She loved the outdoors. She made friends effortlessly, with humans and with animals and nature. She Loved all living things. She sang in the church choir, then in the middle and high school choir. She was cast as the lead role in her high school's very first musical ever performed, South Pacific. She was an accomplished pianist, and would go on to receive a degree in music at the local Mesa Junior College, also double majoring in Home Economics.
She married her high school sweetheart, Paul Yutzy, on June 29,1973, and moved to Germany where Paul was stationed in the Army. They lived there for two years, traveling to Paris and Switzerland, in addition to many different places in Germany. They moved back to the Grand Valley in Colorado in 1975, and would make Clifton their permanent home, just three doors down from the house that she grew up in and where her parents still lived. I was their first daughter, born in December 1975. My sister, Erin Marie, was born in January 1979, then came my brother, Brian Matthew, in December 1980, and finally my baby sister, Heather Anne, in September 1983.
Karen had many friends over the years, and loved participating in everything she could with them. Among many of the things she enjoyed with her friends, she did wreath making with her friend, Suzie, and was in a bowling league with her friend, Rita, just to name a few. She owned her own cake decorating business, custom designing and baking/decorating everything from birthday party cakes to bachelorette party cupcakes to elaborate wedding cakes. She loved the ocean, and said her favorite trip was a family vacation to the Oregon Coast in 2005, with all of her children and grandchildren, where she also met up with her big sister, Kenda, and her husband, Ralph.
Her most favorite thing in the world, though, was living the role of mother to her four children. My siblings and I knew her to be gentle yet so funny. She was strong in every way, from how fiercely she loved us to how tirelessly she cared for our every need and want. She was present, in every sense of the word. She listened, and quietly guided by example. She would always say, "keep the corners turned up", and was rarely without a wide smile on her face. She loved having freshly baked chocolate chip cookies on hand at all times. I have been told from my friends that I had over my growing up years, that sitting at our kitchen counter and eating cookies and telling my mom about their day is one of their prominent childhood memories. Our house was the house that all of our friends gathered at, in the 26 years that my parents raised their children, and I can say with absolute certainty that it is because of my mother's completely open heart to all who crossed the threshold of her home. She Loved absolutely unconditionally, and Laughed with whoever would reciprocate that unending joy.
Her great joy of motherhood grew to being a grandmother of 10, and they each knew her deep love for them. She rocked them to sleep, sang lullabies on a loop, let them do her hair and makeup whenever they wanted to, helped them learn to ride bikes, and so many other small and big things that just communicated to their hearts that Nana loves them so big it would last long after her death.
That death came on October 27, 2013, after battling brain cancer for six years. Since that day, I feel every day that something is out of place. Something is missing, and just not right. Her absence makes me ache for all that should exist and be in a reality with her alive and well in it. There are times that I think I can't bear the ache of my heart's longing for her.
I have two wonderful children, a daughter and son, and am now a grandmother to her first great grandchild, born on what would have been her 50th wedding anniversary with my dad. I now carry the title that she wore; Nana. I consciously and intentionally try to live as the Mother and Nana that she embodied.
As i said in the beginning, this is only such a small part of her story, in my own words. There are many stories of her that so many people in her life know of her. That gives me comfort, joy, and peace, to know that the life of Karen that I was fortunate to have experienced as her daughter, others know of her, too, in their own personal recounting. What a beautiful thought. And what a heartbreaking realization, to know that so many more people that would have come in and out of her life over the past 10 years and beyond, will never have those memories. Her great granddaughter, Lumeria, will not know her touch, hear her laughter, feel the love reach her heart as her Great Nana gazes at her with perfect Love. That creates a brokenness in me that is indescribable.
That is this life, the knowing and the unknown. With all of my being, it will always be the alternate reality that I will hold onto deep in my bones as the reality that should have been; the one where cancer didn't exist, and she lives to 100 years, and everyone that could have known her, does. My wish is that the whole world, everyone in it, will personally experience Love like the kind she so freely gave, from someone in their own lives. It is the kind of Love that makes us better than we ever could be without it. It is the Love that can change the World, if we let it.
