Good Bye Rosie!

Yesterday my friend Rosie died suddenly of a heart attack.

I wish I had a better photo of her, but this is all I have right now.

I knew her through crafting. She took many of my classes - fortunately for me she was in the last two classes I taught! She was a joy to have around, always upbeat and excited for the projects. She never left a class without telling me how much she liked the project.

Rosie made beautiful cards and ATCs. She headed up the ACT club at Keepsakes By Design. A couple years back one of her cards published, even though she had only submitted on a dare from a friend. She got a real kick out of that, although she did not have big aspirations for being published

She took lots of scrapbooking classes, taking great care to document so many important things in her life and the life of her family. I pray that those pages with their stories will be a comfort for her family in years to come.

I should say, she knew what was happening with her body. She made the choice (and frankly, I'm not convinced it was a bad one) to go off of the medications her doctor felt she needed. You see, she tried the medications and they made her sick and tired. When she wanted to try lower doses of the medications to see if she felt better the doctor wanted her to take even more. She almost couldn't function and was canceling out of activities because of how the medications made her feel. She was very frustrated on the medications and determined that she would rather feel good and live less time than to feel the way the medications made her feel and possible live longer.

In the last month I actually saw quite a bit of her, and she showed not indication of suffering or feeling poorly. She was energetic, up beat, laughing lots and just a joy to be around. She took my cardboard book class in early October, and did a bang up job with hers. She shared the finished project with me at the retreat in late October - we shared a table that weekend. Her work on that book was beautiful. She used the theme of Yellowstone National Park, and she stamped and distressed and hinged and just made the most interesting book ever. I felt like I needed to revamp the sample after seeing the improvements she made.

I will miss Rosie!