KELLY NOLAN SHAFER EUOLOGY
JUNE 22, 2024 / DAN ZADRA
Good morning, and welcome everyone.
I am Kelly’s Uncle Dan, but Kelly liked to tease me by calling me Peter Pan — not just because Peter Pan rhymes with Uncle Dan but because she claimed I was one of several people in our family who refuse to grow up.
Yes, Kelly was a fun-loving jokester. In return, though, I used to call her Captain Kelly, for reasons all of her family and close friends will certainly understand.
Kelly Nolan Shafer was someone who could definitely Captain the ship, but always in the most gracious, loving, thoughtful, joyful and compassionate ways. Throughout her life, Kelly was an amazing light: she was a loving mother, a devoted wife, a caring sister, a fun-loving niece and auntie, a loyal friend, and a community and spiritual leader as well. I used to say that Kelly may have been way shorter and way younger than me, but I still always looked up to her. We all did.
Seeing all of you here today reminds me just how much Kelly was loved and appreciated by so many. It has always been that way.
I remember the day, 63 years ago, when my older sister Lynne proudly brought her newborn baby girl home from the hospital. We were all so excited to welcome that adorable, bright-eyed, pink-cheeked little baby into our world. I have a treasured picture of me sitting on the front stairs at the old house on Valley St, with little Kelly wrapped in a blanket in my arms, looking up at me. I SO fell in love with her, we all did.
Through the years that love has only grown. I remember the family get-togethers we had at the Nolan house with the big yard on 11th Ave W here on Queen Anne. By then, Kelly had six brothers and sisters — Colleen, DJ, Jeff, Pat, Katie and Steve — and of course Kelly, as the oldest sibling, really did help raise them all. In my mind’s eye I can still see the little girl we called Kelly Ann skipping up and down the block, drawing hopscotch games for her siblings with sidewalk chalk, wiping their noses or tying their shoes when necessary, and making sure all of them were safe and happy. One of my prized possessions at home is a crayon drawing she made for me when she was still a young girl. It includes, of course, hilarious stick figures of her treasured brothers and sisters.
And now, let’s flip forward to the love of her life. From the time we are little kids we are taught that one-plus-one is two. But a wise old Italian saying holds that, “When the right two people find each other, one plus one is more than two. Much more.”
I think Kelly and Steve personified the spirit of that old axiom. A passage from the “2” Book of Love, reminds us: “We are not made to go through life alone. Life and love are meant to be shared. If you have found love, you have been given life’s greatest gift. The arithmetic of love is magical. Real love always adds, it never subtracts. With love we double our joys, divide our worries, and multiply our possibilities for a life of greater meaning, romance and adventure.”
It’s true. Year after year, Steve and Kelly have shown us over and over that it’s not WHAT we have in our life, but WHO we have in our life that really counts.
And then, of course, there came a time when Kelly and Steve’s love story added a bright new chapter. You could hear the cheering all across Queen Anne when the two little girls that Kelly called “our little miracles” came along.
Helen and Olivia, you probably didn’t know this, but for the past 20 years, whenever Kelly and I spoke on the phone, I didn’t have to mention your names. When the time came in our conversation, I would simply say, “How are the angels doing?” And that was like putting a quarter in one of those old jukeboxes. She would just go off on all that you were doing and all the different ways that she and your Dad were proud of you. And that made all of us proud, too.
It was always that way with her—even on the day she learned that she had been scheduled for exploratory surgery. On that night, Auntie Anne and I and Patrick D’Amelio visited your Mom in her hospital room. She was sitting up in bed, smiling and joking and being her usual confident, gracious and enthusiastic self. You would think at a time like that that she would have been talking about her upcoming surgery—and she did a little—but she was mainly talking about how proud she was of your college graduations and how excited she and your Dad were about what lay ahead for you. Clearly, her two little angels were the lights of her life, and she let us all know it, right up to the very end.
And so, what are we to make of all this? Losing Kelly so quickly, and at such a young age, and at one of the happiest times of her life is simply heartbreaking. It just doesn’t seem fair. I confess that when I first found out I said to my sister Annie, “What kind of a dirty trick is this? Why does God allow something like this to happen?”
But I know better than that, we all do. Cancer is not God’s will. And the sudden death of someone like Kelly who still had so much to live for—that’s not God’s will either. The only God worth believing in does not cause these tragedies, but lovingly comes into the anguish with us. In fact, there is a Jewish saying that I sent to Steve and posted on Caring Bridge that reminds us: “God is closest to those with broken hearts.” In fact, He is with us in this church right now, this morning. And in the knowledge that we are not alone, that God is on our side and in our corner, we must all manage to go on with life, fully and lovingly, just as Kelly would want us to do.
On another note, my sister Annie recently said to me, “Honestly, I don’t know how I’m supposed to live in a world without Kelly.” We talked about that for awhile, and we finally realized that—hey—Kelly is still in the world. I think it was Seattle Archbishop Sartain who said: “The only thing we take with us when we die is what we leave behind.” Clearly, Kelly left behind a long luminous trail of love, and compassion, and humor and hope. The essential message of her life is one of hope—and right now our troubled world could use a lot more Kelly Ann Nolan Shafer in it.
One last thing: I noticed that someone on the Caring Bridge site wrote, “There are so many things I wanted to say to Kelly, and now I can’t.” Man, I understand that feeling so well, but I just want to say, “Yes you can!” If there were things left unsaid between you and Kelly, you can go ahead and say them right now. Today. Or tomorrow. Or next week. Or next year. And have faith that she will fight to hear every word in your heart.
I’d like to close with this. A few years ago, my company published a book on death and dying. It was called Forever Remembered. I’d like to share a short passage that I wrote for that book because I think it personifies Kelly’s indomitable spirit by reminding us of all the things that death CAN’T do:
Let the example of Kelly’s full, beautiful life remind us that “Death can never extinguish our love. It cannot suppress our faith. It cannot restrain our hopes. It cannot destroy our compassion. It cannot end our friendship. It cannot tarnish our memories. It cannot silence our courage. It cannot conquer our soul. It cannot vanquish our spirit. And it cannot steal eternal life.”
— Dan Zadra
6/22/24
The Seattle Times obituary for Kelly can be viewed at: https://obituaries.seattletimes.com/obituary/kelly-nolan-shafer-1089975769