The pictures are beautiful. Thank you for posting them and sharing with us.
Karen and her parents are in a serene and peaceful location. They are surrounded by all of what I consider California's best ... water, hills, trees, and a beautiful sunny clear blue sky.
Are the flowers across the door handles from you?
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CARPENTERS FAN CLUB NEWSLETTER #77
IN REMEMBRANCE- --KAREN ANNE CARPENTER--- FEBRUARY 4th. 1983
by Rev. Charles Neal
Dear Friends,
We come here today to remember and to cherish the life of Karen Carpenter--loved one, friend and companion in the story of our lives. In the course of these days, the farthest thing from our minds and hearts has happened. No one can begin to express the sadness and sorrow that is felt here, and is being felt around the world: a spontaneous outpouring of love and grief for one of God's truly talented and gifted daughters who has died so young at 32 years of age. Into every nook and cranny of this global village the sad news travels yet, and the world weeps. For Karen's story is one that has graced this world with life, with love, and with a song.
Part I
The place to begin, of course, to talk about Karen's story is the place of birth, home of Harold, Agnes, Richard, and Joan, where On the day that you were born The angels got together And decided to create a dream come true. Fred Buechner, (quoting a line from the poet Dylan Thomas), calls it "once below time"; the time of childhood when all time is now time, and a day at the beach never ends, and life is formed and fashioned in the crucible of love, family and friends. As Buechner says: the time the rabbit bit your finger, the time you had your first taste of bananas and cream, the time when you were crying yourself to sleep when somebody came and lay down beside you in the dark for comfort. Yes, the time when Karen balanced blue jeans, baseball, and ballet in a timeless moment of love, family and friends. Yes, the place to begin, "once below time", when the gift of life was received with gratitude and joy, and Karen graced the life of her family and friends, even as they graced her life with love and loyalty. It was our privilege as a family to share life with Karen and her family in those years when childhood turned into teens. Karen and Richard were teenagers in our church and Methodist Youth Fellowship at Bark Methodist Church, welcoming us with their parents to New Haven as we came there to attend Yale, and I became their pastor: the younger than young days for us all, filled with fun and frolic interspersed with a few serious moments--evenings spent in the basement of their home with Ping-Pong sets, hi-fi, baseballs, and more records than I had ever seen; our two girls finding in Karen friend, baby-sitter and confidante; Christmas carols on snowy Christmas Eves in New England, home of our pilgrim fathers and mothers. And then "once below time" ended somewhere along the way for all of us, and the tapestry of time caught us all up as the Carpenters moved to California , -and we returned to Texas .
As any father who has had daughters knows as well as he knows anything else, you never are just 16, but always 16 going on 17. By that time Karen's story reached beyond family and friends into the public domain: the drums at Downey High School, the years at CA State University at Long Beach, the Battle of the Bands at the Hollywood Bowl, A & M Records, until, as we know, she has captured the world's friendship and love. Even though the intervening years have also been 16, going on 17, it still does seem like only yesterday that We've Only Just Begun To Live White lace and promises A kiss for luck and we're on our way And yes, We've Just Begun. Before the rising sun we fly So many roads to choose We start out walking and learn to run And yes, We've Just Begun. Sharing horizons that are new to us Watching the signs along the way Talking it over just the two of us Working together day to day Together. And when the evening comes we smile So much of life ahead We'll find a place where there's room to grow And yes, We've Just Begun.
Our paths crossed again when we were invited with others to be on "This Is Your Life' honoring Karen and Richard, and this indeed is the story of their lives--that in the midst of unimaginable success, we were welcomed by them and their family as friends, with whom the intervening years seemed but a day gone by. Truly a quality of life and friendship that is so meaningful and significant in this world. Since then, Karen's life has continued to unfold: a unique and beautiful tapestry woven with all the experiences of life: a tapestry at once joyous and furious; a tapestry filled with the joy of time, but also the tyranny of time; the joy of success, but also the tyranny of success; the joy of life, but also the tyranny of life; yes and no! joy and sorrow, laughter and tears, limelight and loneliness, love and heartache, health and illness, triumph and tragedy, quietness and fury; always the tapestry of time: the quest for life and life's meaning in the midst of all that time and life bring; a beautiful tapestry weaving Karen's life into a story that graced this world with life and love.
Part II
But if Karen graced this world with life and love, she also graced this weary world with a song. Yes. A song. A new song. Serendipity! For suddenly, in the midst of the rock era, the world was graced with a new song. a new sound it had never heard before, sung and played by the Carpenters: A Ticket To Ride, Close To You, We' ve Only Just Begun, For All We Know, Touch Me When We're Dancing, I Need To Be In Love, There's A Kind Of Hush, Those Good Old Dreams.until now, some 80 million records later, 10 gold singles, 8 gold albums, 5 platinum albums, 3 Grammies. and concerts around the world, there is no place on this earth where Karen is not singing, singing, singing; a loving, sparkling, joyful voice lifted above this weary world in it's perennial quest for life; a voice that accompanied all of us along our way, and never more than on Rainy Days And Mondays that always get us down., and yet didn't get us down because Karen was singing in our homes and in our cars on the crowded expressways, and at our offices.
And yes, Karen singing for us too at Christmas time, carom of joy: Merry Christmas Darling. Jingle Bells, I'll Be Home For Christmas, Winter Wonderland, O' Come All Ye Faithful, Silent Night.ending with the always beautiful Ave Maria, until somehow, for us and others, around millions of Yuletide gatherings and fireplaces, Karen cradled the Christ Child anew for us in song. Someone has said: What we love, we shall grow to resemble. What Karen Loved she has indeed come to resemble, until Karen herself has become a song to the world; yes, Karen's life itself, a song to the world: a song of love and joy and beauty. Ralph Waldo Emerson has written: Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything that is beautiful; for beauty is God's handwriting- -a wayside sacrament. Welcome it in every fair face, in every fair sky, in every fair flower, and thank God for it as a cup of blessing. The world has indeed welcomed such beauty in the life of Karen Carpenter. whose story has become a beautiful song to the world. And we thank God for her as a cup of blessing--a wayside sacrament.
Part III
My friends, as we gather here, we are aware of the joy and beauty of Karen's life, but we are also aware of and saddened by her untimely death, "too soon and too young" as John Bettis has written so poignantly. With every fiber of our being, we cry out, Why?--yea, storming the very gates of heaven for an answer. And yet, God does not give us answers; he gives us Himself to be with us here, on the streets where we live; here, where "once below time" becomes the tapestry of time, and the time also, "too soon and too young". Yes! God gives Himself to us and bears all things with us, all of us with her life; the One who has sustained her life in all its too short years; is now the One who receives her unto Himself-- embracing her as the One who loved her into life, and who loves her now for all eternity.
Paul caught a glimpse of it: If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord, so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's. And again: For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Yes. God gives us Himself. And God has also given us Karen. As John Bettis said so well: Too soon and too young
Our Karen is still But her echo Will linger Forever.
In response to the overwhelming requests for donations in Karen's memory, the Carpenter family extend their deep appreciation to interested friends who would like to donate to one of the following established memorials of their choice:
1. Scholarship for talented musicians at CA State University of Long Beach.
2. Anorexia Nervosa Research.