This dear one left the planet today – on Summer Solstice, a day she loved. Karen, you will be so missed AND I know you are free – and pain-free – and for that I am overjoyed.

A funny thing happened when extroverted Annie left her home state of Iowa in February 2012 to live alone in the mountains of Colorado with her dog Duke. She realized she preferred the quiet to the chaos; that she was more introverted than she knew.

That’s why I was more than happy when my wife Michelle and I settled in rural North Carolina. Our days are mostly quiet. I prefer it that way to my fill-every-moment past.

But this one in the middle of us? She pushed us out of our comfort zone from the moment we met her. In July 2014 we went to Unity in Greensboro the first time. As I remember, I left during an after-service brunch to use the restroom. When I came back, Michelle introduced me to Karen, said she’d invited us to a birthday party for a woman named Carol. I felt anxiety rise. Was she sure? Carol didn’t know us and didn’t invite us. But Karen assured us Carol would welcome our being there.

And she did.

That time in 2014 when Michelle and I got married on our way to CVS – the first day same-sex marriage was legalized in NC – Karen was there. She called us out of the blue after we detoured from CVS to go to the Registrar of Deeds in Greensboro because the journalist in me wanted to see history in the making.

Karen had a feeling we were headed that way. “I’ll meet you there,” she said.

Karen not only stood up for us at our impromptu wedding. She paid for the marriage license because we hadn’t planned to get married and didn’t have cash with us.

Karen was there that day and so many others.

She was the person you could always count on.

I think of Karen as the connective tissue. She connected Michelle and I to nearly every friend we have in North Carolina. She invited us to places and events I wouldn’t have gone to if it hadn’t been Karen asking. And without exception, I was glad I went.

Karen married her love Melanie last Saturday, even though they both knew Karen’s days were numbered.

She once gave her friends a wristband that read: “Live Your Dash” based on a poem she loved by Linda Ellis … the dash referring to the dates on the tombstone from beginning to the end.

Karen lived her dash. Man did she. She squeezed every drop out of this life. She let those she loved KNOW that she loved them – not just with words or texts. With time.

I spoke to her the other day and she was plotting a food drive. “I can’t just lay here,” she said.

Karen never just laid there – even when her body said she must.

I love you Karen. I will miss your smile, your voice, your kind, kind heart. I’ll do my best to live my dash. Godspeed.