Kelly at 70
Me at ten with Kelly at age 2 months.
My youngest sister Kelly celebrated her 70th birthday ten days ago, a month after I turned 80. For seven decades, she’s been a beautiful addition to my life. On the occasion of her recent birthday, I dug though pictures from our childhood and found one of me with bangs and freckles at the age of ten holding Kelly when she was barely two months old. Perfect in every way, she looked just like the Gerber Baby poster mother framed and hung near her crib. For her three older sisters (Molly, Cathy and Kim), Kelly was a living doll we could hold in our laps and carry around as she grew ever more adorable over the next six months.
Kelly began life at Westover AFB in western Massachusetts. Growing up in a military family, she moved with her three older sisters and our parents from one part of the country to another whenever Dad had a new assignment. Following a snowy winter in New England, she headed south to Montgomery, Alabama for nine months while our father attended the Air War College at Maxwell AFB. The following summer, Kelly sank her little toes into wet white sand when our family spent two weeks vacationing at Fort Walton beach on the Florida panhandle. Water would later become a passion in her life.
For years, Kelly was a beloved classroom teacher in San Antonio, TX where my parents had retired. Around the age of fifty, she met and married Jack—the love of her life. By then Kelly had helped sponsor a program called African Hope Children’s Ministry. Soon their shared mission included building wells in Ugandan villages where children had to carry large plastic cans of water by hand from distant sources. Jack can build or fix anything; and together, he and Kelly travelled to Uganda where they helped construct pumps that brought clean water to villages—a program called Unreached Africa.
Today, they live in Fredericksburg TX where they love paddling with their dogs on local streams in a kayak that Jack constructed by hand. Over the course of their life together, they’ve made a point of stopping for ice cream cones during their travels in the States and around the world. They share life with their two dogs—a Golden Retriever named Mr. Darcy and his spunky little companion Lizzy (from Pride and Prejudice fame). Whenever and wherever in the world they meet Goldens, Kelly and Jack stop to greet them and sometimes share their ice cream cones.
Just as I carried Kelly around when she was a baby, she carried Darcy around with his look alike toy when he was a puppy. And just as I loved holding Kelly when she first came into my life 70 years ago, she adores sharing Darcy and Lizzy with children and adults alike.
When our mother Alice grew quite senior, Kelly and Jack moved with their dogs into her home and brought joy into our Mom’s life until she was almost 100 years old. Kelly’s family circle includes former students who consider her their “other mom,” as well as Jack’s children and grandchildren from his first marriage.
And so Kellykins, happy 70th birthday from your big sisters Cathy and Kim. Love and light from all of us whose lives you’ve touched across the years and miles.