Kris was born February 8, 1948, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, just a week short of her parents' first wedding anniversary. She was the first of three children they would have. She was always our older sister, always there to help, encourage, to hold our hand. She was the one who stayed in touch, who wrote the letters, made the phone calls, sent cards.

She was driving from the Pepin Manor nursing home where she worked as the kitchen director to my sister Remy's cafe a few blocks away when she had the heart attack. She had been called in to work that Saturday because someone who had been scheduled to work was suddenly unable to. Kris was pretty annoyed about that. For the first time in nine years, she had arranged to have a four day weekend: Thanksgivingm and all three days following. She was looking forward to it, too. She and her husband Mike had not had Thanksgiving on Thursday since both their children were away from home. Rose, the youngest child, was in Australia on a student exchange, and Joe had a job in Green Bay. So they were going to have Thanksgiving on Saturday, when Joe got home. When the call came from Pepin Manor, the turkey was already in the oven. She left Mike detailed instructions about the bird - when to baste it, when to take it out of the oven - and wrote, "I'll be home to make the gravey."

But she still missed them. She always had them and her hopes for them in her heart, but she always let them go. She would keep in touch by phone, even if it was all the way to Adelaide to help Rose talk through her boyfriend troubles. And she was always sending cards--not just Christmas and birthday cards, but Thanksgiving cards, Valentines, even St. Patrick's day. (She sent Rose advice about the boyfriend in the form of a card which she suggested Rose send to the lout: "I'm trying to see things from your point of view, but it's hard to get my head that far up my ass.")

We chatted happily but hurriedly. "I've got a lot to do before Joe comes home," she said. We had also spoken the day before, on Thanksgiving, and I had volunteered to help her solve a problem she and Mike were having with their computer over the phone today. She had called to tell me not to bother with it today. "I've got too much to do," she said.

Joe got home that evening, and the two of them had a nice, long talk.

When she was called in to cover for the missing staff on Saturday, she was pretty steamed. But she wasn't there more than twenty minutes before the person called to say they were coming in after all. Kris laid her folder down on her desk and called out, "I'm outta here!" and left the building.

It must have been sudden, but not violent. There's not much traffic in Pepin, but even so Kris habitually avoided the highway. She took Second Street instead. Her car drifted across the road and came to a stop just in front of the Methodist Church, one wheel barely over the curb.

It's a small town. She was noticed right away. The woman working the local mom and pop grocery store is an EMT and was on the scene almost at once. Remy's partner Melissa came racing over from the cafe. The ambulance arrived and they started CPR and kept it going the entire time during they rode to Wabasha. My sister Remy was in the back of the ambulance with her all the way.

But Kris never regained consciousness. They were never even able to raise a pulse.