To my sweet friend Carol:

These last few days have been rather sad and reflective times for me as I have anticipated your passing, gone to visit, and said my good-byes. This morning you took your final breaths, and suddenly my world seems a bit smaller and less filled with light. I know that you lived your life to its fullest and hung doggedly to your independence to the very end. You have been a great example to me of how to live life with purpose and without regrets.

I met you two years ago when you happened to select my service offering at a ward Relief Society activity. I offered to make a couple of freezer meals for someone, and you were happy to receive them. We were both fairly new to the ward, so I didn't know you yet, but I made your meals, delivered them to your apartment, and had the very first visit of many that I would have with you over the course of the last two years. Not long after the freezer meal exchange, I became your visiting teacher, and it became my privilege to get to know you better and better as the months went by.

You were a woman ahead of your time. You worked in the computer industry for IBM and AOL long before there were many women in those types of industries. For the age you were (70), you knew far more about and were far more comfortable with computers than most people your age. But for all of your accomplishments and varied experiences, you were most grateful that you found the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and joined it just a few years ago. You were in a nursing home at the time recovering from some serious heart and lung issues, and you watched as faithful visiting teachers visited the comatose woman who was your roommate, and you knew you wanted to know more. You wanted that same light and truth, and once you found it, you never let go of your enthusiasm and passion for the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Through our many visits, you helped me to appreciate my faith more. There were times you would get so frustrated and angry when you would see a member of our church take their faith for granted. You knew what it was like to be without the gospel, and you had little patience for people who could be so nonchalant about it. You also wouldn't allow me to put up fronts and cover for things. When I had a partner who rarely appeared with me, you called a spade a spade and said that some people just don't have testimonies of visiting teaching. Yes, Carol, you were so right about that. Thank you for building my testimony of visiting teaching.

I knew how important it was to make sure that we had a good visit every month. You lived on your own and craved the conversation and companionship of visiting teaching. Even though you were twice my age, I loved that visiting teaching brought us together to find some wonderful common ground. You had so much wisdom to share and gave me wonderful perspective on so many issues. Once again, I found the richness of visiting teaching because I could work with you. One time we shared a conversation about how visiting teaching really is about ministering to the individual and that not everyone needs the same things from visiting teaching. Carol needed visits while another I visit taught needed to be able to text me to find out when church was while having more limited visits. This is the way I think about Christ seeking out the individual lambs of his flock. It's all about getting to know the needs of the individuals so that maybe I can make a positive difference.

The funny thing is, you made a much bigger difference in my life than I think I made in yours. You have left definite imprints in my life, and your passing has impacted me in ways I wouldn't have thought. I will miss seeing you riding your Jazzy to church. I will miss your laugh and your sense of humor. I will miss your absolute insistence on independence. You were like the cat with nine lives who kept coming back even though it seemed the odds were stacked against you. You were an absolutely doggedly determined woman, and I admired you so much for that.

I was glad I could say a proper good-bye on one of your last lucid days on Sunday. I was grateful to my husband for giving me that chance. You always talked about how much you admired the men in our church for being so devoted to family and for being so involved with their children. Our ward gave you plenty of opportunities to see that in action. Thanks for giving me that reminder of what a great man I have in my life and how fortunate I am. Even though that hadn't been your experience when you were married and raising your daughter, you never begrudged anyone that fact. Instead, you found light and joy, and appreciated feeling like a grandma to all the little ones in our ward.

Thank you, Carol, for touching my life and for providing wonderful eternal perspective this week and always. I can't wait to meet up with you again someday and have some really good laughs about life!

Until we meet again, me dear friend.