Melanie Heatherly Rekers

This month has been one of “those” months. The kind you never want to live again. The kind that turns your world upside down in moments.

On the 29th of January my sister-in-law, Melanie, died. She was lovely in every way: a true Southern lady; a “Child of the South” my brother called her; a woman who cherished her family, her children and her friends. She was generous and kind and gave of what she had to anyone in need. Only sixteen days passed between the diagnosis of a brain tumor and her death.

She left three children and her husband, my brother, wondering how they would carry on with their lives; her mother, sister and brother equally lost in grief. She also left a network of friends: neighborhood women who raised their children while she raised hers; women who played together, volunteered together and solved problems together while their husbands worked and traveled for business; women who formed a close knit and solid group of support and care for each other. In Melanie’s last days those friends fed her family, helped where they could; crying and praying and struggling to understand. Like Melanie’s family, her friends clung together trying to understand the suddenness, the finality of the tragedy. Like her family, they were stunned by the speed at which death took her and struggled with her absence from their lives.

Melanie was one of those people who understood completely that relationships are all of life and everything in life. And she lived that truth out, giving herself generously to husband, children and friends. Melanie will be missed by everyone who came close to her.