Kristine Caroline Creations
"Life is beautiful"

 

Beads and Coffee.......

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One of our favorite things to do was visit bead shops.  We both had an addiction for sparkly things and hoarded beads.  We could spend hours in just one shop in Old Colorado selecting and designing pieces.  We would then spend the whole day beading and drinking coffee while our families would endure as we refused to do anything else. Even during COVID quarantine, we would Zoom for several hours and craft away while drinking coffee and chatting. She was my  ¨go to¨ to geek out with;  someone who understood  me completely and loved me despite all my flaws.

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I miss her smile and the way she threw her head back in a silent laugh when something was hilarious.  I miss the 4:45 PM daily phone call as she drove back up the mountain from work.  I miss her cold fingers and hands that I would hold and rub warm.  I miss the coffee and beading, coffee and doll making, coffee and crocheting, coffee and shopping, coffee and chatting. 

 

I miss the way she delighted my children, created art with them (but only if it was colored in completely), played with them and loved them like they were her own. Most of all, I miss how I knew she would be forever there, till she wasn’t.  My world collapsed, my family wounded.  Four years have passed and I am still afraid I will forget the feel of her small frame when I hugged her. 

 

She and I had plans to grow older together, to travel, to live near each other, and spend more time together.  We knew that we would never make it to 80 together, but 47 was too soon.  How to explain to others that a body that everyone knew had been dying, was a sudden death because of a disease: Scleroderma?

 

 It was a normal word in our home.  No child should have to know that word.  She had it longer than she didn’t.  Living in itself was her miracle. Yes, we all knew her life would be shorter.  Life was her miracle and yet I guess dying young was a gift.  Many say she is better off, happier; not in pain, but rejoicing with our Lord.  Yes, we all know that, yet there is a void here that can’t be filled.  

 

She was and is a daughter, a sister, a best friend, a wife.  Whom do you confide in now when the one you confided in is gone?  Whom do you run to when the one you ran to is gone?  How do you shoulder this and try to heal?  It is still very much an open wound, but not festering as it once was.  

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How do you piece yourself together when shattered?  

 

God.  

 

When people ask this and I answer, they look at me strangely like it is not believable. God put my pieces together.  He retrieved them from the ground.  Without Him, I would still be broken on the floor.  I didn’t understand it, but God did answer my prayer that last day I spent in the hospital with her.  When I left that hospital room, I instinctively knew that I may never see her again.  I prayed that God would heal her or take her home quickly and take her home, He did.

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Kristine Caroline was much more than a woman with the disease of Scleroderma.  She was a daughter, a sister, a wife, a best friend, an artist, a writer, a super secret spy agent, an animal lover and that is how we remember her.

 

Kristine Caroline Creations is for her.  Someone who loved God despite her being given this illness.  She never let her illness dictate where she went or what she did.  Kristine Caroline Creations represents a strong woman whose sunshine is still permeating.  God carries us all through His plan, even when it is not our plan.  Trust Him as my sister did and as I am doing.

 

Happy Sunshine

Rev. 21:4

 

Kristine Caroline Creations

Designer and Owner:  Kara R McNeese