Shelly was born on Sep 1, 1971, in Denver, making her clearly a Colorado Native, a fact she often teasingly reminded me of. I say "clearly" because I was born in Germany while my parents were stationed there in the Military. When I was 3 months old my parents moved back to the States and settled in Colorado, making Colorado the first US state I lived in. But this did not meet Shelly's strict criteria for being a Colorado native, and I was reminded of that often.
For grade school and middle school Shelly attended Notre Dame Catholic School, and then graduated from Kennedy High School in 1989.
Shelly initially attended University of Northern Colorado, at Greely, joining the Alpha Delta Pi Sorority, and then later finished her education at Metro State College graduating in 1995 earning a Business degree, with an emphasis in accounting. She went on to work in banking and for financial institutions.
We met each other in 2003. Some caring friends invited her to come to Pathways church, and she had been attending for several years before we met. It was at Pathways Church that Shelly finally found what she had been looking for all along, an authentic faith in God. Coincidently, that's where she also found me, or I found her, depending on who's story you believe. Both of us had agreed to volunteer to help setup for a new service at the church; her making coffee, and me setting up chairs. I never figured out why she volunteered to make the coffee, she hated coffee. In any case when I saw this young beautiful woman, I had to introduce myself and I struck up a conversation with her. After many dates, and snowboarding outings, we married on a beautiful Fall day on Oct 23rd 2004, at the Evergreen Lakehouse.
Shelly had a kind heart towards kids. Early in our marriage we volunteered to tutor school age children with a program called Whiz Kids. Shelly poured her heart and time into the program, and was constantly looking for ways to motivate the children to excel at their home work. She painstakingly put together a reward chart to track the children's progress in their activities, and give them a goal. When the goal was reached we took the children out for a special lunch as a reward.
Shelly had a love of the Bible and learning God's truths. A good friend got her interested in and she attended Bible Study Fellowship for several years, a program to help her learn God's Word. The program is intensive, with take-home assignments that involved much study and thought. When we missed church, she often took time to listen to online podcasts of her favorite Bible teachers. Through this time I had the privilege of seeing Shelly grow in her faith in Jesus Christ, as she studied the Bible's old and new testaments .
Shelly cared for me well. She took on the task of learning to cook new meals, always wanting to incorporate new and strange vegetables into our dinners. We joined a Community Farm that provided weekly fresh organic vegetables to us during the summer. "what are we supposed to do with this fennel anyway?", but she always found a way. Her appreciation for natural and local produce expanded, and she signed up for a working-share at the Farm. Once a week she would work at the farm picking and packing the vegetables, learning about the food we enjoyed so much.
Both Shelly and I shared a love of Nature and an appreciation for God's creation. This meant many hiking, biking, camping and snowshoeing trips, but also meant enjoying a good thunder and lightning storm at home. When a storm would roll through in the evenings, we'd open all the drapes and windows, turn of the lights and sit on the couch, being awed by the intense flashes of lightning, the powerful thunder and the sheets of rain that poured down.
Over the past few years Shelly developed a love of books and reading. So much so that she volunteered with, and eventually got a job with the Denver Public Library. This was by far the most rewarding of Shelly's career choices. Through the library she had the opportunity to motivate children to read. She would specifically invite our friend's kids to come to story time, or to be involved in the "Summer of Reading" program, or to just come say hello. The children often were very excited to meet "Miss Shelly" at the library, sometimes that was the primary reason they came. Shelly had a knack of finding books for patrons with just vague visual clues. "Can you help Little Johnny find that book that was over on that shelf last week, it had an orange cover with a picture of a butterfly…no, I don't remember the title, author, or subject" . Shelly also read a lot at home, always bringing home more books than she could ever hope to finish, with the best intentions. Recently she finished "A lady's life in the Rockies", and just loved the descriptive narrative, and the new words which she faithfully looked up in the dictionary when she did not know their definitions.
And then there is JTG, that's her stuffed animal, aka "Joe The Gorilla". I gave JTG to Shelly one Valentine's Day, actually it was the day after Valentine's day, but that's another story. JTG became Shelly's lovable pal, a pillow, and often the butt of our jokes. If one of us did not clean the dishes, or left food on the counter all night, well it was usually JTG's fault, and we blamed him. Shelly made up a voice for JTG, and would make him talk, usually in playful derision and sarcasm towards me. I often would also try to make JTG talk, but Shelly would always say "Nope, that's not JTG's voice".
Shelly and I experienced disappointment and pain during our marriage, including multiple mis-carraiges, an adoption that fell through, deaths in our families, and finally, cancer. In the midst of this, over the last few years I saw a transformation taking place in Shelly as she shifted her hope away from the things that society had told her would make her happy (a career, a baby, lots of friends on facebook) towards things that would not disappoint, fade or be taken away. Shelly had listened to a Sermon by David Anderson, and she quoted him in her Journal "if your hope is in anything, anything other than Jesus you will be thoroughly disappointed. " I began to see glimpses of an inner peace in Shelly that only God can bring, a peace that does not come from circumstances.
Shelly loved to laugh and have a good time with friends at parties, at our book club or at a family BBQ. At book club the evening would start out with meaningful discussions about books, then transition to funny stories, move on to slap stick humor, and often included Shelly laughing so hard it brought tears to her eyes. We usually ended up staying way too late, and it was always worth it.
Shelly valued a simple life, she did not want a bigger house, a newer car, or more posessions, in fact she was usually looking for ways to downsize and get rid of our stuff. When we lived for months in Phoenix for Shelly's cancer treatment, we stayed in a condo that a family friend graciously let us borrow. During that time I don't remember Shelly ever complaining about or missing our possesions back home.
Shelly was devoted to several close women friends who loved her and with whom she had a very close relationship. She relied on them for strength, for insight, and for a sympathetic ear. She cherished the phone calls and emails of these friends, and was encouraged by their authenticity, honesty and lack of pretention. By sharing their unfulfilled hopes, struggles, and anger, Shelly came to understand she was not alone, and that others experienced and endured hardships as well, and this gave her a new perspective.
Shelly was my advocate, she was on my side, she encouraged me, loved me despite my faults.
Shelly - I love you very much...and life will never be the same for me. It was such a privilege living out our marriage vows to each other over the past 9 years. Goodbye for now, I will see you again in eternity.
Darrell Smith