It was often said that Kristin Jones could light up a room with her smile.  And though this was certainly true, when that smile was accompanied by her laugh - a laugh that was much bigger than one would expect from her small frame - those in her presence couldn’t help but join in.  She loved life and longed to experience all that she could from it.  But most of all she loved people.  She thought deeply about the needs and concerns of others.  But she never settled for simply ‘thinking’ about their needs, but traveled all over the world - from East Africa to Mexico - using her gifts to serve the needs of others.  Kristin loved to linger with other’s stories.  She always had time for another who needed a listening ear.  And this combined ability to experience joy and sorrow in such deep ways with others made her an extraordinary human being.  It is what made her a faithful and remarkable friend, daughter, aunt, niece, wife and mother.

Kristin was diagnosed with Stage IV Liver Cancer in February 2016.  And the incredible weight of this reality - that her body was being internally rampaged by a disease that felt unthinkable and unfair for a 39 year old mother of four - was almost too much to bear.  Her fourth child was only 9 months old and still feeding from her body - a metaphor for the reality of how much her life-giving presence was needed.  And with this diagnosis, her life felt like it was now counting down.  It felt as if this incredible woman - who could light up a room with her smile - was slowly going to have that light snuffed out.  That the joy, which she so often brought into the lives of others, would be forever swallowed up by sorrow.

But Kristin had an incredible community of family and friends that surrounded her during this time, which made facing every step in this journey possible.  Not only did this community step in and tend to every practical need possible, but they also walked with her in the most difficult places of emotional pain and spiritual doubt, choosing to bear her burdens with her, which often meant sacrificing their own needs and desires.  This community held her up when she didn’t have the strength to stand.  They lifted her up in prayer for her when she didn’t have the faith or words to pray.  Kristin’s body was, indeed, ravaged through her year long battle with cancer; yet her spiritual and emotional capacity was expanded and enlarged by God and through the work of this incredible community.  And this community included the staff of the Hospice House, where she spent the last three weeks of her life here on Earth, who tended to her with the utmost dignity and kindness.

Kristin Noelle Jones died on March 1st, 2017, Ash Wednesday.  And as Christians around the world marked their foreheads with ashes, symbolizing the frailty of human life, those of us who loved Kristin had our hearts marked as with ashes.  Her passing from this Earth was deeply painful for so many of us, and is still painful to this day.  And it is right that it is still painful, for she was that important.  And even though the pain is less intense, it is not and never will be gone.

Throughout her year-long battle with cancer, the image of a garden became an important anchor for Kristin and her family.  It was an image that she was given by God at the very beginning of her diagnosis, and one that continued to emerge in various, rather amazing ways.  A garden is something that can appear desolate and hopeless as it lays fallow before planting, or as the roots are deep in the soil in the cold months.  But when the seed is planted and the garden is tended to, it bears fruit and brings blessing.  Those of us who deeply loved Kristin believe that was the perfect metaphor as we construct a piece of meaning from her death (for we will never understand it all).  The seeds of joy and compassion that she planted during her life are living on beyond her years here on Earth.  They live on through the countless lives she touched once or twice, never realizing how important those smiles were to the recipients.  They live on through the way her kindness reshaped how her friends and family see the world.  They live on through her children, each of whom bear marks of her beauty and character in their growing bodies and hearts.  And these seeds that Kristin Jones planted during her life will continue to live on until, when all things are made new, we see her smile light up a room again, and hear that laugh that will forever be too big for her frame.