While we were in Hawaii, Kauai to be exact, the services were held in Las Vegas for Aunt Liz. We were sad we were not there to say Aloha and be with her sister Susan and her family during this time and to say our final earthly good bye to a beautiful woman. I did want to share with you a letter we had written to express some of the emotions that courageous Aunt Liz brought to our lives.
Aloha - to everyone gathered here today to honor the memory and joyfulness that Aunt Liz brought to our lives. We wish a special Aloha to Susan, Jerry, Deborah, Elizabeth, Jerry and to the rest of your family. Even though we are not there today with you – we are there in spirit and holding you all close in our hearts and prayers today.
Richard, myself and the rest of our family wanted to express our love, emotion, gratitude and admiration for this amazingly brave and courageous women we called Aunt Liz. It is very hard to find the right words to convey to others what a true treasure she was in our lives. After writing and rewriting words in trying to describe the meaning of what Liz met to us I think God stepped in and said here it is - this is what Liz showed you - this is how she lived her life. I am going to use parts of a daily devotional from an email that was written by Jim Liebeit from March 30, 2008, that best describe our Aunt and Friend Elizabeth Fix
The bible verse is from James 1:2-4
Consider it pure JOY, my brothers, whenever you face trails of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete not lacking anything.
Jim Liebeit, goes on to say… an elderly blind women was being moved to a nursing home. When she arrived, she was taken to her room. She entered and told the attendant enthusiastically, “I love it” the attendant questioned the women…. “how can you say you love it, when you’ve never been in it before – and you can’t see what it looks like?’ The woman spoke up “seeing the room dosen’t have anything to do with it. Happiness is my choice. I have decided to love my room. Every morning, I have a choice on whether I focus on what I don’t like about my life or what I do like about it. I’m choosing right now to love the new room where I’m going to live”.
Liz had more than her share of trials, being windowed much to young, two time breast cancer survivor and many other life challenges….. Pastor Liebeit goes on to say “so much about the quality of our lives is determined not by the situation itself, but rather how we respond to it and one thing we all can count on for sure: Our lives will not be lived without trail, struggle and pain”.
Liz demonstrated that she lived with grace, she choose joy and even happiness, in the face of difficult life situations. I am not sure many of us could find it within ourselves to choose joy during the difficult seasons in our lives. She showed us joy in her relationships: being married to Uncle Bob, being a fabulous sister to Susan, a friend and companion to Charles. She showed us joy in this crazy place called Las Vegas. If you were in her presence you were in her JOY.
From a trip to the Shore of New Jersey years ago to the shores of Kauai in September 2006, celebrating a birthday with Liz and Susan this past March, here in Las Vegas…. These are a few memories to treasure for a lifetime.
Her lively personality and fiestness…. Her adorable LIZ ISMS – “housework is bad for your finger nails” and money in your pocket book in the casino is called LETTUCE. The time in Kauai she looked out the window of the car at all the vegetation and plant growth along the side of the road and said “you know it would look a lot neater if they would trim it up”.
We have a huge empty spot in our heart knowing Aunt Liz is no longer there to show us the joy that she so generously gave away to everyone.
We don’t want to think of today as saying Good Bye to Aunt Liz, rather we want to think of it as ALOHA. Thank you Liz, for spreading the joy and letting us be part of it…
All our Love
Hugs, Prayers, Aloha and Kisses
Rich and Jackie
Richard, myself and the rest of our family wanted to express our love, emotion, gratitude and admiration for this amazingly brave and courageous women we called Aunt Liz. It is very hard to find the right words to convey to others what a true treasure she was in our lives. After writing and rewriting words in trying to describe the meaning of what Liz met to us I think God stepped in and said here it is - this is what Liz showed you - this is how she lived her life. I am going to use parts of a daily devotional from an email that was written by Jim Liebeit from March 30, 2008, that best describe our Aunt and Friend Elizabeth Fix
The bible verse is from James 1:2-4
Consider it pure JOY, my brothers, whenever you face trails of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete not lacking anything.
Jim Liebeit, goes on to say… an elderly blind women was being moved to a nursing home. When she arrived, she was taken to her room. She entered and told the attendant enthusiastically, “I love it” the attendant questioned the women…. “how can you say you love it, when you’ve never been in it before – and you can’t see what it looks like?’ The woman spoke up “seeing the room dosen’t have anything to do with it. Happiness is my choice. I have decided to love my room. Every morning, I have a choice on whether I focus on what I don’t like about my life or what I do like about it. I’m choosing right now to love the new room where I’m going to live”.
Liz had more than her share of trials, being windowed much to young, two time breast cancer survivor and many other life challenges….. Pastor Liebeit goes on to say “so much about the quality of our lives is determined not by the situation itself, but rather how we respond to it and one thing we all can count on for sure: Our lives will not be lived without trail, struggle and pain”.
Liz demonstrated that she lived with grace, she choose joy and even happiness, in the face of difficult life situations. I am not sure many of us could find it within ourselves to choose joy during the difficult seasons in our lives. She showed us joy in her relationships: being married to Uncle Bob, being a fabulous sister to Susan, a friend and companion to Charles. She showed us joy in this crazy place called Las Vegas. If you were in her presence you were in her JOY.
From a trip to the Shore of New Jersey years ago to the shores of Kauai in September 2006, celebrating a birthday with Liz and Susan this past March, here in Las Vegas…. These are a few memories to treasure for a lifetime.
Her lively personality and fiestness…. Her adorable LIZ ISMS – “housework is bad for your finger nails” and money in your pocket book in the casino is called LETTUCE. The time in Kauai she looked out the window of the car at all the vegetation and plant growth along the side of the road and said “you know it would look a lot neater if they would trim it up”.
We have a huge empty spot in our heart knowing Aunt Liz is no longer there to show us the joy that she so generously gave away to everyone.
We don’t want to think of today as saying Good Bye to Aunt Liz, rather we want to think of it as ALOHA. Thank you Liz, for spreading the joy and letting us be part of it…
All our Love
Hugs, Prayers, Aloha and Kisses
Rich and Jackie
Rich and I had our own goodbye in Kauai at the Waiohai on Friday morning at about the same time as the service in Las Vegas. We found this great place in Las Vegas aloha 2 go, from the Internet and there is a man their named Joe who took care of us and made sure the lei's were delivered where they need to be and were at the Church on Friday. We along with Rich's brother Kevin and family sent special lei's for Aunt Liz and Susan, and had the purple orchid lei's sent for the rest of the family. We felt at least that way we could all be their in spirit with all of them. Susan, later told us that they were beautiful and plentiful lei's (since you never know sight unseen over the Internet what you might get - we were happy to hear her review, we have since called JOE to thank him for all his help and assistance and we have threatened to stop in his store next time we are in Vegas and say hello, bye the way he lived on Oahu til he moved to Vegas 10 years ago, we enjoyed a few conversations about his Islands).
Here is a picture from Friday September 26 at 6:00 am in the morning, the sun had not yet risen over the horizon so it is a little dark but you can see some of the Orchid flowers on the rocks waiting for the tides to take them out to sea. We shared a few memories of 2006 out loud with each other and we could see Liz standing their putting her flowers in that same spot only two short years ago on a Friday Morning. We cried, remembered and prayed asking for that peace and understanding only the Lord can provide. I think we felt some peace but as a human I don't think I will ever understand it all til I am one day standing in heaven.
Some of my friends call me a romantic (notice Friends not spouse call me that) and I have this beautiful picture in my mind of Jesus at this colorful garden gate all covered in lovely flowers of all Liz's favorites - welcoming and saying hello to Aunt Liz. And then through the gate she see Uncle Bob, no words are exchanged he just takes her hand and walks her back through the gates into heaven and they just smile at each other so much in love and the only thing he says is "I have been waiting for you".
They now get to spend eternity together!
I know they had a true love and I want to thank them both for being a "married relationship example" for Rich and I.
In the previous post STUFF, a couple below you can see the three of standing at the same spot by the green railing in 2006 and the flowers from Liz and Susan's lei on some of the same rocks. Oh thank heaven for pictures!
Time to turn the computers off and get them into the computer store for their BRAIN merge. We had to buy that new computer and we did go MAC.... and they will transfer the information from the old one to the new one and it will take about three days. We have great pictures from our trip and lots to tell about the Islands - but it will have to wait for now.
God Bless you all with a wonderful day and week... Interesting side note my bible study group is reading ONE MONTH TO LIVE this fall. I will keep you posted on the insights... Find your happiness Aloha
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