Karolyn is my first cousin and I have known her since childhood but in reality, I have only known her for the past 5 years. We knew each other as children then skipped 50 years or so, living our lives in opposite ends of the country and in Karolyn’s case, sometimes opposite ends of the world. We reconnected about 5 years or so ago when she and Peter came to Houston to visit friends and we have been filling each other in on the 50 year gap ever since. I posted a picture of her on this site yesterday. She was in our back yard blowing bubbles and laughing while we BBQ’d but I didn’t have the camera with me when I caught her dancing to Canned Heat’s “Going Up the Country” on the patio. That is a picture of her that I will always carry with me, just wish I could share it with you because I think that was really Karolyn. I know Karolyn lived a full life and had very few things remaining on her “to-do” list when she left us. Karolyn got sick the first time not long after our re-uniting but that only slowed her down ever so slightly. I am amazed at her spirit and strength. She had the best attitude about life of anyone I have ever known. Since she and Peter became owners of the Woodstock of Fayette County, Texas, we have seen each other every two or three months and were fortunate to see her joy at working on this land and planning it’s future. Why worry about cancer when you can worry about bluestem and native grasses? I kept a file of our emails over the last couple of years and she was so excited about the progress she and Peter were making on this land. I re-read most of them last night. In our correspondence she always downplayed her condition. Not enough time for that. Her correspondence was always full of planning, doing, and generally so full of optimism about things that you tend to forget she was ill. In the last email I got from her shortly before she left us, she told me she was so lucky to have reconnected with me and gotten to know Melissa. I think we were the lucky ones and will always cherish our time with her.