Hello Kast Family,

Just got home a little while ago from the cemetary. Went there to think of Ker and wish her a happy birthday. She turns 43 today.

I try to imagine what it would be like if she were here. She’d be done with nursing school by now and probably in a nice apartment or house.  Working at Henry Ford Hospital if she had her way. She really liked everyone there and thought that’s where she like to go after graduation. Or maybe still at one of the Pontiac hospitals in the mother baby unit. She dearly loved the job she had in that dept at NOMC.

As usual, she would have lots of friends and be on the go all of the time. She’d be winning at Bingo and at the Texas Holdem tournaments. And her boyfriend would be really sharp. Probably another nurse or in some branch of the medical field. Maybe they’d be planning to ‘travel nurse’ together. Her hair is long and red of course and she wears clothes 2 sizes smaller than mine and never lets me forget it.

I could go on and on with my vision of what should have been. But, how do i know it doesn’t exist. I believe she is somewhere now living the life she wanted. She’s probably laughing at me and say, “boy will she be surprised when she gets here and sees how close she is”.

I know she is keeping on eye on all of us, I still feel her sometimes or there will be a sign that she’s been around. Not as much as before but every so often.

I hope you all had a great holiday season and that 2012 will be kind to you.

I love you Kerrie and miss you so much. Happy Happy Birthday! !

Mom

And love to all the Kast Family

Joan

Hello KAST Family and Merry Christmas ( or whatever holiday you may be celebrating this week).

This time of year is filled with happiness, but of course there is always some sadness too. It’s our 5th Christmas without Kerrie. Sometimes it’s so hard to believe she’s not here with us. I keep wanting to buy Christmas presents for her and then remember that she won’t be sitting around the tree with us in the morning.

Although I can’t buy her everything I want to, I always get her one gift. The same gift I have given her for more than 30 years… a slinky.

I don’t remember when it started, but one year I gave her a slinky and just kept it up year after year. I still do!

Fuat and I are at mom’s this week and have been happy to be able to spend some time with mom, Ron, Alisa, Robyn and TJ. We couldn’t make it out to Dad’s this year, but hopefully we can do that after the first of the year.

Yesterday, Fuat and I took a little trip to Henry Ford Hospital… and to P2.

Mom, Fuat and I went through some of Kerrie’s things the other night and had two bags full of electronic games, board games, puzzles, movies and books that people had given her while she was in the hospital. We were trying to decide what to do with them, and mom and I both felt very strongly that Kerrie would want us to take them to the Hospital and up the her old floor; P2.

Sometimes she was so bored there, before she had the strokes, and we would sit and play games for hours. I am sure she would be happy knowing that all those things that kept her occupied were going to be of use to someone else there. When we arrived, we went to the nurses station and told them why we were there. They remember Kerrie, and Mom, and were so happy that we would bring the donation to them. I was happy that I was able to show Fuat the place where “lived” for a whole year… and show him the place where we said goodbye to Kerrie, but it hurt to stand in those halls. The only thing that kept me from crying was knowing Kerrie would be happy with what we did.

Today Mom ,Fuat and I went to the cemetery to wish Kerrie, Grandma and Grandpa a Merry Christmas…. and I gave Kerrie her slinky. It looked so pretty, wrapped in the paper and sitting on her headstone wreath. I couldn’t help thinking I wish she could see it… but I am sure she did and I am sure she was laughing at the thought that I still bring her our favorite toy.

Whatever you and your families are doing this Christmas, we hope you have a wonderful holiday and the new year brings you many happy days.

We may not be here as often as we used to but we always think about our KAST Family and you are in our hearts.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Jenn

Hello All !
We’re back and we did it! Riding an elephant is nothing. Not even when the mahout jumps off and walks ahead so he can use your camera and take pictures (and he doesn’t get back on). Not even when you swing back and forth and roll around the elephants back as the huge shoulder bones go up and down and you feel like your going to fall off for sure, and your palms are grabbing the lap bar so hard and sweating so much you can hardly hang on and roller coasters are beginning to look really really good. Piece of cake, nothing to it………. Next time I go I’m taking my bathing suit so I can get in the water and give the dusty little (huge) thing a bath. It was part of the package but we declined this time.

I have found a new favorite country. Thailand is beautiful, friendly, hot and very economical. The standard of living is so low we could go and live very well on our social security alone. Anyone interested???? Many retirees are there, especially from the European countries and you hear a lot of Australian accents as well. If you haven’t ever thought about going there, time to put it on your list.

I have about 400-500 more pictures I need to download. I’ll send you all copies when I am done ( just kidding). I’ll just talk your ear off about the trip when I see you.

Take care all and if I don’t see you or talk to you before…………HAVE A GREAT HOLIDAY ! ! !

Joan

As the song says… one night in Bangkok and the world’s your oyster. Well.. two nights and you still have jetlag

Hello from Bangkok KAST Family! Life has been so busy lately that Mom and I had to come all the way to Bangkok to find time post a note on here

We are here on a business trip, but going to make it a vacation while we are here. Hoping to ride an elephant, go to the grand palace and dance like Anna and the King of Siam and take a walk on the bridge over the river Kwai ( Well.. at the least the one that was rebuilt after it was blown up).

Although it’s been a while since we’ve been able to get on here, we think about everyone all time.

For those of you who haven’t already heard, our own KAST family member Pam Munthe, recently ran in the NYC Marathon. WOW Pam! I am so impressed…

My sweet Fuat and I have been busy with work and Mom has been busy… retiring!

We hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and we’ll be in touch soon! I will try to get on here more often …especially since mom is always asking me when I am going to post again

To my askim… we’ll be home soon honey. Don’t have too many parties while I am gone. I love you

Love to you all,

Jenn and Joan

It’s been a long summer and, unfortunately, not much time to be able to get on here and post anything.

Fuat’s 13 year old sister, Menekse, was with us for the summer and he has just taken her home yesterday ( honey please hurry home… I miss you!) . We had a great summer, and we were able to take her to a lot of great places including:

Michigan for the Annual Whitney Family Strawberry Party
Washington DC for July 4th fireworks ( very cool by the way)
Virginia Beach
Cedar Point
Atlantic City
Niagara Falls
New York City

I really have to give credit to all of you that have managed to have a job AND kids. I can’t imagine trying to have a job and taking care of babies or really young children. Having her here gave me just a small taste of what it must have been like for my mom. Mom.. you are AWESOME

It also opened my eyes a little more to things we all take for granted..like going bowling, playing putt-putt golf, going to McDonals at least once a week or going to the movies. These were all “firsts” for her…

Yes, of course they have  McDonald’s, bowling alleys, putt-putt golf and movie theaters in Turkey   (I know at least one of you is thinking this question…

These are just things that we consider part of a normal childhood, and take for granted, but it isn’t a normal, “every day” occurance everywhere else…I am really glad that we got to share them with her. She just couldn’t get enough of her favorite cheeseburger! Thank goodness she doesn’t go to McDonald’s every week at home. If she did, she’d start looking like an American ( and if I need to explain that.. then you don’t want to hear the explanation )

So much of mine and Kerrie’s childhood revolved around these kind of things.. and almost all of them with Pam and Cathy Rosenburg.

Pam, maybe you were too young to remember, but the four of us used to walk down the street to a little putt-putt golf place on Commerce Road. We’d go there at least 3 or 4 times a summer… bowling… I already wrote about that, but Kerrie loved bowling and we would go to the bowling alley over by the Commerce Drive-in.

And movies.. I fondly remember the first time the four of us went to see Star Wars. We went to the Milford Cinema. Back in those days you could take in your own food, so we had a huge paper grocery bag full of popcorn, a bag of candy and some cokes…and they didn’t have “occupancy” limits in those days… the theater was sold out. People sitting on the floor in the aisle and the four of us sat on the ledge on the right side of the cinema, because theire were no seats left.

We went to see a couple of movies together at the Commerce Drive-in. I think one of them was Herbie the Love Bug ( though my memory is getting a little bad about that, so can’t be sure) and I think we saw another Disney movie there too. I can’t recall the movie, but I do remember the four of us leaving the car and going to the snack bar. I wish we had taken the time to find a drive-in somewhere in Virginia and taken Menekse to one.

Mom and Dad took us on a couple of trips to Cedar Point, and I know Pam and Cathy went with us one one trip…but the one that I remember the most was the trip the four of us took alone. We asked if we could go and our parents said yes.. and none of us could believe it. We left early in the morning and we were driving my dad’s old, blue Delta 88. Mom had made all of us some tuna fish sandwiches for lunch and we were eating them while we were driving down the Ohio Turnpike. I was driving…. Cathy was sitting next to me and Pam and Kerrie were in the back seat. One of use, either Cathy or me.. I can’t remember which one of us did this, decided to throw the rest of our sandwich out the window and it landed on the windshield of a Semi-truck. We were laughing so hard we were crying… I don’t remember much else about that day, but I rememer that flying tuna fish sandwich. Pam, do you remember that?

Every time we took Menekse to do one of these things I would have a memory of doing them with Kerrie, Pam and Cathy. What would our childhood have been like without those two?!?! I can’t even imagine, so I really need to thank my mom and dad for picking that house on Red Arrow! Having neighbors and friends like that is somethign we took for granted too…

Although we had a great summer, there were some things that were not so great.. I had surgery to remove cysts on my left wrist, the day after Menekse arrived. At least that gave Menekse a chance to experience an American Hospital… and gave me 10 days off to spend with her while she was first here.  The plan is to remove the cysts on the right wrist some time in November.. and then…Mom had surgery in August. She keeps calling it a small procedure.. but it wasn’t… the good news is that there was no cancer.

Ok enough of the bad stuff…

Having Menekse here gave me a chance to do things with my “sister” that I never really go to do with Kerrie. Like go shopping and be silly in the perfume section of Nordrstroms. Watching the saleswoman, as Menekse put on 100 differnet kinds of perfume was hilarious..I wish Kerrie and I had done more things like that. Kerrie and I had one great shopping day together that will remain in my mind forever…May 5th, 2006.. two months before she was diagnosed.  She had just had her bariatric surgery and we went shopping for jeans..she picked up a pair of jeans I just knew were going to be too small for her and told her not to be too disappointed if they didn’t fit yet…. and when she came out of the dressing room in the size 18 jeans, with the big smile on her face, I burst into tears…that was a great day! The perfume shopping trip with Menekse will always stay in my mind like that too.

I can’t share these things with Kerrie anymore, and I took them for granted when I had the chance… but now I have four new “sisters” to share these things with and, although they can never fill the void that is in my heart every single day… they can help me to feel like I have a sister. I will do my best to never take my time with them for granted.

The pain never goes away my Ker-Bear. I never stop missing you, I never stop wishing I had said more, done more while I still had the chance.   People say it gets easier with time, but to me it just seems to get harder.

There is never a day I don’t think about you. There is almost never a day I don’t shed a tear… I miss you so much my sweet sister.

Today… the day you left us… 

Today I will miss you more than most days…

Today I will cry more than most days…

Today my heart will break more than most days…

I love you Kerrie.. and I will never forget.. and I will never let the world forget you!

Today, I do what I can only bring myself to do once or twice a year ( today and your birthday)… and today I will watch you video… I hope others will click on this link and watch with me:  http://youtu.be/8gldp96796o

We went bowling the other night. Me, Fuat, his sister Menekse, our friends Nate and Gizem… and Kerrie.

I was standing on the lane, picking up my bowling ball (with the hand that hasn’t had surgery yet) and I heard Kerrie’s voice saying “Let’s go bowling”

 We were in elementary school, I think Kerrie was maybe in the 1st or 2nd grade, and we were driving by the Union Lake Bowling Alley and Kerrie was pleading with Mom and Dad, “Let’s go bowling”.

Kerrie was on a kids bowling league, and was pretty good, I tried it a few times and WOW was I bad. The first time I bowled I was lucky to hit 13 points. Kerrie was my bowling champion, but she drove me crazy with always wanting to go bowling.

I think we were camping in Alpena, or maybe we were up in Marquette that time, and it was raining. We were driving through a small town, on the way to see the basketball movie “One on One” with Robbie Benson. I remember the small town, I remember the brick buildings and driving by the bowling alley.. “Let’s go bowling!”  Uggh.. Kerrie.. just stop with the bowling. I am sure that was what was in my head.

We were bored, it was summer.. I wanted to go swimming. “Let’s go bowling”. We were in High School, it was the weekend, I wanted to go out dancing with my friends.. “Let’s go bowling.”  We were working at a music camp in Muskegoen.. it was our ONE night off from being camp counselors and we were allowed to leave the camp for a few hours…. Yes… She said it every time.. “Let’s go bowling!”  We worked at Cedar Point, and it was our day off… “Let’s go bowling!”

She alwasy wanted to go bowling.. always.

She came to visit me, in Ohio, on May 5th, 2006. This was only two months before she was diagnosed… and yes, she wanted to go bowling. We went to a bowling alley, but I wouldn’t bowl. We sat in the bar and sang Karaoke instead.

I think I can only remember bowling with my beautiful sister two or three times ever and I think we were really young. I wish we had gone more. I am a horrible bowler, but find it fun sometimes.. and I am sure I would have had a lot of fun bowling with Kerrie.

 So, as I stood there staring at the bowling ball in my hand, hearing Kerrie’s voice saying “let’s go bowling” I was fighting back the tears that are always there.. just on the verge of coming out. I looked at the ball and said, “Yes Kerrie… let’s go bowling.” 

I got a strike.

It’s been one year since the day of my surgery… a year since I had a cigarette…I wish I had paid more attention to that last one, but threw it out without thinking about it as I walked in for Surgery.. no last “drag”.. no thinking… just being scared about the surgery and the prognosis. 

Anything I could say about today has already been said. My mom said it all in the gallery…

Love you all

Jenn

Hi everyone,

 I have tried so hard to keep updates on here as frequent as possible, but the time just gets away from me ( as I am sure it does everyone) and finding a few minutes free time to write posts is difficult. I’m home alone at the moment, so am taking this bit of peace and quit as a good opportunity to get on and write a few words.

It’s been a year… a year since Fuat arrived in the country, a year since my diagnosis, a year since we got married … sometimes it seems like it’s gone by so quickly, sometimes it seems like it has been a lifetime.

Now that we’ve celebrated our first anniversary ( several times )….. our life has started to calm down a little bit. Tommorrow is another one year anniversary, but I’ll wait to talk about that one until tomorrow

With the celebration of a Royal Wedding, on the other side of the pond, it had us thinking about our wedding ( or marriages.. yes you read that right. We had more than one … sort of…)  … We never really had a chance for a wedding.

For several weeks before Fuat arrived, I searched for what I would consider to be the perfect dress to be married in and searched for the best way to get married and have at least a small part of our family there. With the timelines ande visa contraints, we wouldn’t be able to plan a huge wedding… we’d have 90 days from the time he got into the country, so it was going to be short and simple. That’s what I wanted in the first place, so that was fine with me. I looked everywhere for the dress I really wanted and it just did NOT exist. No matter, I would worry about that later.. I had to figure out how to actually get married with my mother and brother in Michigan and my father in Las Vegas. It was not going to be easy… there was no way I was going to make everyone happy and it was really stressing me out… but I decided I would wait until Fuat got here.

Fuat arrived on March 21 and we started making plans. On March 30th, we went to see the Imam at the Richmond Mosque to have the Religious wedding.. so, on March 30th we were married in the eyes of God. Our plan of getting married, and having a wedding with at least some of my family present, was not to be. It turns out Godf had other plans for us.

On April 15th, we received the diagnosis of Stage IV Ovarian cancer and, as I lay in the Emergency room holding Fuat’s hand and listening to the Dr. give my mother the diagnosis over the phone, I knew our wedding would never happen… so we made it official and notified our families that we had gotten married and then… told them about the diagnosis. We gave up our dream of a wedding… and got ready to deal with all that was to come.

When we were married, we were alone.. wearing jeans and T-shirts, no fancy outfits, no party afterwards, no one to say congratulations…no one to even witness it… our witnesses were complete strangers… It was not what we planned and a little frightening.. ( and then Fuat put the car in reverse and ran over a poor little tree.. but that’s another story    We didn’t even have rings yet. It was so sudden, so unplanned… not really the kind of day you dream about since you were a little girl. But sometimes life is what happens when you are busy making plans.

On April 25th, we had a small ring ceremony in our living room. Fuat was still in jeans.. but he looked wonderful   Teena and Nate, our dear friends, were with us while Mom put our rings on our fingers. To me, this was our wedding day… again, not what we had planned, not what we had dreamed about, but it was beautiful. As mom put my wedding ring on my finger, and then her engagement ring and wedding band next to it, I couldn’t help but cry a little. When she put Fuat’s ring on his finger, she had tears in her eyes as well. Fuat had a huge smile on his face, but I could feel his hand shaking in mine. At least this time he couldn’t drive over an trees

So when it comes time to celebrate our anniversary no one is really quite sure what day to celebrate. To us, we have two anniversaries, March 30th and April 25th ( and some people celebrate it on April 15th… but in our hearts April 15th is no day to celebrate)… It doesn’t really matter what day we celebrate as long as we can say we made it through the year. There were some times I wasn’t sure we would, and when we first started out I wasn’t sure I would be here to write these words a year later. But again, God had other plans and we were blessed with a Stage Iv diagnosis being changed to Stage I after my surgery.

It’s been a rough year, but through it all my wonderful husband has stood by me and held me hand. There were times when I know the year was harder for him than it was for me, but he never gave up… on me.. on our marriage.. on my health… on living in this country. We had it all thrown at us within the first year.. “Sickness and health.. better or worse.. richer or poorer” but we’ve made it to this point and can happily look toward year # 2.

This morning my dear, sweet Fuat woke me at 5:00am so that I could watch the Royal Wedding. He knew how much I wanted to see it, so he made sure I was awake.. and as I watched Kate and her sister get out of their car I couldn’t believe it.. there was my wedding dress. The one I had dreamed about.. Not on Kate.. on her sister.

 That was the dress I had dreamed about for my wedding and it made me think about how I would never have that wedding… but then I realized it didn’t matter.  I have the most wonderful husband in the world. He has been here for me through the worst part of our lives and I still wake up to his smile every morning.  So it doesn’t matter if you get married in old jeans and a T-Shirt or the wedding dress you’ve been dreaming about. All that matters is that you are with someone who makes your heart happy and that you can honestly say you are glad to be with that person.

We may not have had two billion people watching us get married, or even one member of our family, but to me we still had a royal wedding because we were together.

Maybe someday, fate and God will make it possible for us to have still have our wedding.. INSALLAH…but if not, I’m ok with that. I have my prince. And if we do.. well, at least now I know where to find my dress

We love you all!!

Jenn & Fuat

Hi Everyone,

 Yes.. I have been horrible about getting updates on the page. This spring has been so hectic, and SO many things have gone on that it seems there is never enough time to write everything I want to write. I spend lots of time writing posts in my head, and day dream about coming to the site to put the post on here, but finding time to make it reality has been hard.

 Mom I PROMISE you I will make more time to do this.

I have lots of things I want to update everyone on, but first I think it’s important to let everyone know what’s going on with Teena. Not everyone has contact with her and most of you don’t have a clue what’s gone on with her since she went back to Ohio. Yes.. it’s because I didn’t post on here, but I am trying to make up for that now.

Here’s a synopsis of what’s gone on with her:

She went back to Ohio and was in a rehab center for about two weeks and then was able to leave the rehab center and move in with her daughter and her son in law. She has had an AMAZING recovery and to be honest, you would never know anything had been wrong with her if you didn’t know she had been having problems.

She’s had a few visits to the doctor, but is no longer in rehab. She’s been cleared to drive, but not cleared to go back to work yet. Her next step is to get a CT Scan of the anuerism that did not burst and see what they need to do about that.

So far.. she’s doing absolutely amazing and it really is a miracle that she is here with us.. let alone doing as well as she is.

 I wish I had been updating everyone as things were happening with her, but…. at least this is the highlight of everything. She is doing very well and will continue to improve.

 And.. her hair is growing back faster than mine ( Not fair ) she looks great with short hair. Teena, you should keep it that way.

LOVE YOU!

 Jenn