Good evening and thank you all for showing up to help us celebrate Kayla. For those of you that I don’t know, my name is Lindsey. On the outside, people would say that Kayla and I were best friends from college, inseparable from the day we met. but we were more than that. She was the closest thing I’ll ever have to a sister.

The years between 18 and 38 may as well be 20 different lifetimes. How do you begin to eulogize someone that you’ve lived so many lifetimes with, but were supposed to have so many more? How do you decide which stories will make sense to share, which stories were inside jokes just between us, and which stories are now my sole responsibility to take to the grave?

Kayla and I survived the highest of highs and the lowest of lows together. On our hardest days, we took her mom off life support and put my newborn daughter on life support. On our best days, we graduated college, I flew in from Seattle to surprise her for her bachelorette party, we married the loves... Read more of our lives, adopted animals we consider children, and laughed and laughed with my now healthy daughter.

She was the first one to show up when I needed a shoulder to lean on or had something to celebrate. But the special thing about a sister isn’t the lowest of lows or the highest of highs - it’s the everyday moments shared together that make up a life: the years we lived together, the time spent dreaming in college about what our lives would look like while splitting a pizza, the hours (and hours and hours and hours) spent watching and quoting Gilmore Girls and Love Actually, the way she learned early on that I was only half listening if my response was “mmmhhmmm” and how she’d say it back to me to know she was on to me, the way she always called me Loo Hoo. or the time she filled the clothes iron with propel water without realizing it and couldn’t figure out why she smelled like strawberry kiwi for the next month.

As lovers of the show “Gilmore Girls”, Kayla and I often repeated a Latin phrase from the show: “In omnia peratus” which translates to “ready for anything.” If I could sum up the way that Kayla lived her life, it would be just that: ready for anything. Kayla lived life to the fullest and would want us to do the same.

To close, I’d like to read a poem from Josie Balka


I hope you don’t miss me in heaven
As badly as I miss you here
I hope for you
The silence is peaceful
And the thought of me feels like Deja vu
A wave of familiarity that you can’t quite put your finger on
Empty for only a Moment once in a while
And gone like the wind after that
I hope when you got there
You were swept over by a wave of forgetfulness
So you’re still entirely full of life and happiness
But you can’t remember why
And pieces of me are a part of you in a way that you feel even more complete
I hope you don’t have to miss me up there in the way that I miss you down here
I can’t imagine heaven feels how I feel without you
I hope you yearn for nothing and no one
I hope there is no pain at all
Maybe I’m feeling both of ours at once and that’s why it feels this heavy
If that’s the case, it means you are with me and I’m okay with that
I hope in heaven, grief does not exist
And I show up in your dreams on occasion
And the feeling of having me with you lingers with you through the morning after you wake up
I hope those are the same nights you show up in mine
And if in heaven you can’t remember me at all
I hope the wave of forgetfulness that overtook you when you arrived
turns into an ocean of remembering when we meet again
like we never spent a moment apart
And I will forget what it was like to be without you
And you will never have known what it was like to be without me
Because you found the peace I’d hoped you’d find
While I found my way back to you Read less

Good evening and thank you all for showing up to help us celebrate Kayla. For those of you that I don’t know, my name is Lindsey. On the outside, people would say that Kayla and I were best friends from college, inseparable from the day we met. but we were more than that. She was the closest thing I’ll ever have to a sister.

The years between 18 and 38 may as well be 20 different lifetimes. How do you begin to eulogize someone that you’ve lived so many lifetimes with, but were supposed to have... Read more so many more? How do you decide which stories will make sense to share, which stories were inside jokes just between us, and which stories are now my sole responsibility to take to the grave?

Kayla and I survived the highest of highs and the lowest of lows together. On our hardest days, we took her mom off life support and put my newborn daughter on life support. On our best days, we graduated college, I flew in from Seattle to surprise her for her bachelorette party, we married the loves of our lives, adopted animals we consider children, and laughed and laughed with my now healthy daughter.

She was the first one to show up when I needed a shoulder to lean on or had something to celebrate. But the special thing about a sister isn’t the lowest of lows or the highest of highs - it’s the everyday moments shared together that make up a life: the years we lived together, the time spent dreaming in college about what our lives would look like while splitting a pizza, the hours (and hours and hours and hours) spent watching and quoting Gilmore Girls and Love Actually, the way she learned early on that I was only half listening if my response was “mmmhhmmm” and how she’d say it back to me to know she was on to me, the way she always called me Loo Hoo. or the time she filled the clothes iron with propel water without realizing it and couldn’t figure out why she smelled like strawberry kiwi for the next month.

As lovers of the show “Gilmore Girls”, Kayla and I often repeated a Latin phrase from the show: “In omnia peratus” which translates to “ready for anything.” If I could sum up the way that Kayla lived her life, it would be just that: ready for anything. Kayla lived life to the fullest and would want us to do the same.

To close, I’d like to read a poem from Josie Balka


I hope you don’t miss me in heaven
As badly as I miss you here
I hope for you
The silence is peaceful
And the thought of me feels like Deja vu
A wave of familiarity that you can’t quite put your finger on
Empty for only a Moment once in a while
And gone like the wind after that
I hope when you got there
You were swept over by a wave of forgetfulness
So you’re still entirely full of life and happiness
But you can’t remember why
And pieces of me are a part of you in a way that you feel even more complete
I hope you don’t have to miss me up there in the way that I miss you down here
I can’t imagine heaven feels how I feel without you
I hope you yearn for nothing and no one
I hope there is no pain at all
Maybe I’m feeling both of ours at once and that’s why it feels this heavy
If that’s the case, it means you are with me and I’m okay with that
I hope in heaven, grief does not exist
And I show up in your dreams on occasion
And the feeling of having me with you lingers with you through the morning after you wake up
I hope those are the same nights you show up in mine
And if in heaven you can’t remember me at all
I hope the wave of forgetfulness that overtook you when you arrived
turns into an ocean of remembering when we meet again
like we never spent a moment apart
And I will forget what it was like to be without you
And you will never have known what it was like to be without me
Because you found the peace I’d hoped you’d find
While I found my way back to you Read less

First, I wanted to thank everyone for coming this evening. It is truly incredible to see this many people wanting to celebrate the life of Kayla with me. She was truly one of a kind.

Also, thank you to everyone that donated to the Missouri Botanical Garden to get a memorial tree planted there. You guys knocked it out of the park which is awesome! They are unfortunately in a holding pattern right now with growing existing trees before planting new ones, but hopefully they will be ready for us soon. I will be sure to update everyone on Facebook when we figure out when and where the tree will be for people to visit.

Finally, thanks for anyone who also donated to Stray Rescue as she cared so much about the cause and them being able to help as many dogs and cats as possible was a huge objective for her.

One special thank you to Ashlee, Lindsey, Brian and Kare for helping me out so much with getting this set up. It definitely was not possible without you four helping out as ... Read moremuch as you did.

Kayla, my love

It has been ten weeks already. I am still at a loss for words. It still doesn’t feel real most of the time. I am just completely lost without you here every day with me. I still want to text you all the time while I am at work. I still want to call you on my way home from work. And have you run up to me when I get home for a hug and kiss. You made life so easy and perfect and with such joy.

All the amazing moments that we had. All the amazing trips into the forests, out to the beaches, and onto the snow slopes. All the dogs that we saved, fostered, and fostered failed. How you made our home so beautiful. How you made Christmas so meaningful and filled up our home with soooo many Christmas trees. You already had plans on where to fit more Christmas trees in our home. The memories of making popcorn and cranberry garland every year while watching a Muppet Christmas Carol. So many inside jokes that we got to share together that no one else knew about. All the inside jokes that I still think about all the time but have no one to share them with.

I am missing my person. My one and only person. All the trips that we haven’t gone on yet around the world. All the date nights and restaurants that we still need to go out to. All the shows that we haven’t watched together on the couch or all the musicals that we haven’t been able to see yet. There are just so many things that are still on our to-do list. We had so much time still for the rest of our lives to do everything that we wanted to do. We were in no hurry. We told each other that.

I just thought there would be more time. Our family, our friends and I have been saying this a lot over the last 10 weeks. If we knew we didn’t have more time, we would have done more sooner, faster, and more drastically. But we all just thought that there was more time. A lot more time. We would have told more people to try and help. More time to intervene. More time to try and convince you even more to get the help that you absolutely needed. More time to get you moving again. More time for everything. We went from having a great evening eating dinner and watching the CITY soccer match on Saturday night to you unresponsive on Sunday morning and passed away by Sunday evening. It was all way too quick. Way too soon. We couldn’t even say goodbye to each other. It is just so heartbreaking.

I still cannot believe it. The struggles that you were going through. I had no idea of the extent of those struggles. How long it was going on for without me knowing. The pain and suffering of your past. How you could never move past it. You didn’t tell me about your struggles with alcohol. You didn’t tell anyone. It must have been so difficult holding all of that in for as long as you did. Why didn’t you just ask for help? I would have moved mountains to help. The addiction is just so strong.

Our relationship was always so easy. From the day that we met, we were just the perfect pair. We did everything together. Nothing else mattered. I took it for granted. I didn’t stop to slow down and see the pain that you were in. I wish I had paid more attention to the struggles that you were dealing with and tried to help you more. You had sooo much more to live for in this life. All your dreams and passions that you still had and wanted to do. I still just can’t believe this happened.

Your creativity was stunning. From your incredible paintings (that you all see here tonight) to the imaginative crafts that you created for family, friends, and dogs. The life size rulers that you made for any couple starting a family. The scrabble boards in frames with the families’ names that you made. The reindeer ornaments that you handed out one Christmas. The flowers, bow ties, and bandanas that you made to raise tens of thousands of dollars for Stray Rescue. The cooking and baking from scratch that tasted perfect every time. And so much more.

You were such an amazing person that had affected so many lives in such a positive way throughout your life. It is evident from the outpouring of love that I have seen since your passing. So many people have reached out to me saying how incredible you were. How you helped them in so many ways through their life. Their struggles. By listening, by giving them advice, just by being you. You changed so many people for the better. So many people I have never met but knew you so well and the stories that they have had on how you helped them. It has been incredible to see. But I already knew all of that. From the moment that we met, I could tell just how amazing you were. How caring you were. How you would do anything for anyone.

It really was the best 12 years of my life. A little over nine years married. We were just so perfect together. You made me such a better person in life. We were just in our own little world, and it couldn’t have been better.

I love you so much babe. I will always love you. Read less

First, I wanted to thank everyone for coming this evening. It is truly incredible to see this many people wanting to celebrate the life of Kayla with me. She was truly one of a kind.

Also, thank you to everyone that donated to the Missouri Botanical Garden to get a memorial tree planted there. You guys knocked it out of the park which is awesome! They are unfortunately in a holding pattern right now with growing existing trees before planting new ones, but hopefully they will be ready for... Read more us soon. I will be sure to update everyone on Facebook when we figure out when and where the tree will be for people to visit.

Finally, thanks for anyone who also donated to Stray Rescue as she cared so much about the cause and them being able to help as many dogs and cats as possible was a huge objective for her.

One special thank you to Ashlee, Lindsey, Brian and Kare for helping me out so much with getting this set up. It definitely was not possible without you four helping out as much as you did.

Kayla, my love

It has been ten weeks already. I am still at a loss for words. It still doesn’t feel real most of the time. I am just completely lost without you here every day with me. I still want to text you all the time while I am at work. I still want to call you on my way home from work. And have you run up to me when I get home for a hug and kiss. You made life so easy and perfect and with such joy.

All the amazing moments that we had. All the amazing trips into the forests, out to the beaches, and onto the snow slopes. All the dogs that we saved, fostered, and fostered failed. How you made our home so beautiful. How you made Christmas so meaningful and filled up our home with soooo many Christmas trees. You already had plans on where to fit more Christmas trees in our home. The memories of making popcorn and cranberry garland every year while watching a Muppet Christmas Carol. So many inside jokes that we got to share together that no one else knew about. All the inside jokes that I still think about all the time but have no one to share them with.

I am missing my person. My one and only person. All the trips that we haven’t gone on yet around the world. All the date nights and restaurants that we still need to go out to. All the shows that we haven’t watched together on the couch or all the musicals that we haven’t been able to see yet. There are just so many things that are still on our to-do list. We had so much time still for the rest of our lives to do everything that we wanted to do. We were in no hurry. We told each other that.

I just thought there would be more time. Our family, our friends and I have been saying this a lot over the last 10 weeks. If we knew we didn’t have more time, we would have done more sooner, faster, and more drastically. But we all just thought that there was more time. A lot more time. We would have told more people to try and help. More time to intervene. More time to try and convince you even more to get the help that you absolutely needed. More time to get you moving again. More time for everything. We went from having a great evening eating dinner and watching the CITY soccer match on Saturday night to you unresponsive on Sunday morning and passed away by Sunday evening. It was all way too quick. Way too soon. We couldn’t even say goodbye to each other. It is just so heartbreaking.

I still cannot believe it. The struggles that you were going through. I had no idea of the extent of those struggles. How long it was going on for without me knowing. The pain and suffering of your past. How you could never move past it. You didn’t tell me about your struggles with alcohol. You didn’t tell anyone. It must have been so difficult holding all of that in for as long as you did. Why didn’t you just ask for help? I would have moved mountains to help. The addiction is just so strong.

Our relationship was always so easy. From the day that we met, we were just the perfect pair. We did everything together. Nothing else mattered. I took it for granted. I didn’t stop to slow down and see the pain that you were in. I wish I had paid more attention to the struggles that you were dealing with and tried to help you more. You had sooo much more to live for in this life. All your dreams and passions that you still had and wanted to do. I still just can’t believe this happened.

Your creativity was stunning. From your incredible paintings (that you all see here tonight) to the imaginative crafts that you created for family, friends, and dogs. The life size rulers that you made for any couple starting a family. The scrabble boards in frames with the families’ names that you made. The reindeer ornaments that you handed out one Christmas. The flowers, bow ties, and bandanas that you made to raise tens of thousands of dollars for Stray Rescue. The cooking and baking from scratch that tasted perfect every time. And so much more.

You were such an amazing person that had affected so many lives in such a positive way throughout your life. It is evident from the outpouring of love that I have seen since your passing. So many people have reached out to me saying how incredible you were. How you helped them in so many ways through their life. Their struggles. By listening, by giving them advice, just by being you. You changed so many people for the better. So many people I have never met but knew you so well and the stories that they have had on how you helped them. It has been incredible to see. But I already knew all of that. From the moment that we met, I could tell just how amazing you were. How caring you were. How you would do anything for anyone.

It really was the best 12 years of my life. A little over nine years married. We were just so perfect together. You made me such a better person in life. We were just in our own little world, and it couldn’t have been better.

I love you so much babe. I will always love you. Read less