Kathy was the first daughter of my parents, John and Rena Lowery. We were a family of two parents and six children. As it happened in our family, the first daughter took on many of the duties of raising the younger children.

One of our favorite pictures from our childhood is a picture of Kathy, at eight years old, guiding a large healthy dog, a Boxer named Butch, hooked up with a harness to a little red wagon. In the wagon there are two children, myself (Greg) and my twin sister Lorraine. An eight-year-old girl with a two-year-old dog pulling a red Radio Flyer wagon holding two three-year-old kids. I think that picture may explain why Kathy was always fond of large dogs.

As an adult she met another large dog in her neighborhood named Roxy. She loved Roxy. Roxy had her own human. So, Kathy married the human. Roxy's human was John Case. Years passed and Roxy passed. Then John and Kathy adopted a rescue dog, Slotsky. Slotsky was with them another 10 or 11 years.

Kathy was a teacher. She was a teacher for those who needed a good teacher most, children with special needs.

Let me tell you about a lesson my sister shared with me. Before Kathy graduated from Colorado State College and became a state certified teacher, she was a Sunday Catechism teacher at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Colorado Springs. St. Mary's had Sunday Catechism for children with special needs. It was the only program like that in the city.

As I recall, it was Easter Sunday 1967. I was 15, a student in high school and Kathy was 20. She was in her third year of college studying to be a Special Ed teacher. Our family attended mass at St. Mary's church. After mass, I found one of my friends, a classmate. A group of Special Needs kids walked by. My friend and I started mocking these kids. They are different. They are goofy. We are so proud of being "normal."

Kathy sees me doing this. She comes over and grabs me by the ear. "Don't you make fun of these people. You're just one lucky chromosome from being one of them. This is what I do. This is what I study, to make their lives better. When you mock them, you mock me."

It is by God's grace I still have that ear. I don't remember her exact words, but I can remember the lesson. That lesson stuck with me. I could feel the passion she had for her work. More often than not, I would have made a fuss. But what she said was said with passion! I just licked my wounds and learned the lesson.