Cookie Love

This post has been a long time coming...sometimes it's easier to just put things off than write about them.  However, Cookie lived her life celebrating, so I guess it's about time to celebrate a life well lived!

We first met Cookie and Dave in Boondocks, Iowa at the most po-dunk truck step you will ever see.  We were living in Webster City and had signed contracts to work at Woodstock a few months earlier.  After signing, we discovered that some close friends of Chris' aunt and uncle had previously worked at Woodstock and had just signed up to work there again the coming year.  They were driving through on I-35 to visit their daughter in Minneapolis...would we like to meet up?!

Of course we said we would, so set up the where and when and looked forward to asking some questions of people who knew what in the world they were getting themselves into!  We settled into a booth to wait...and a few minutes later, Cookie came BOUNDING into the room with the biggest smile I'd ever seen.  Literally, she danced up to us. :)  It was perfect.

We became fast friends with Cookie and Dave, and ended up booking our flights over to India together.  Lots of google chat conversations about packing and logistics later, and we were off on an adventure!

Cookie and Dave are about as adventurous as you can get - they've lived in the bush in Africa, the Indian mountains, and biked across the country.  They are both Mennonite, have a wonderfully refreshing lifestyle, and are completely (what I can describe as) "free".  They are who they are...period.  And I LOVED learning from them!

After arriving in India we quickly discovered a common love of hiking, and formed a core weekend hikers group.  Without Cookie I would have been the only girl - but 55+ year-old Cookie was never one to be left at home!  So we stuck together and explored our Indian mountainside week in and week out. :)

Our first 5K hiking trip...just got our feet wet!

While this is a picture of Chris and Cookie, it was usually she and I walking/talking through the long kilometers.

The "girls" at a small shop after an especially long hike...fanta has never tasted so good!

While hiking was a major enjoyment for us, we also SERIOUSLY enjoyed exploring the long shopping bazaar in Mussoorie.  Cookie and I could shop with the best of them, and spent many a day looking at fabric or visiting the shops down in Dehra Dun looking for "just the right item". 

One of my favorite trips with Cookie and Dave was when we went to "Happy Valley", the Tibetan refugee village outside of Mussoorie.   Cookie LOVED taking pictures, and I can distinctly remember her snapping away at anything and everything.  We got to visit a training location for Tibetan artists, and I remember her being fascinated.   And of course, what's a trip to the far side of Mussoorie without a ride on the man-powered ferris wheel?!

Cookie making one of her usual faces while riding the man-powered ferris wheel. :)

Some of the best times, though, were just hanging out.  Making suppers, watching American T.V. episodes, playing games, singing songs, looking through pictures...it was all just so easy.  We've never connected so quickly and easily with another couple.  It was very special.

One of our favorite evening activities was making Brinner - Breakfast for dinner.  It was one of the few American meals that could be easily made - so we made it!  They'd make the trek down the mountain or we'd trek up, everyone would pitch in/share what they had, and we'd enjoy a true breakfast feast. :)

Some time during the spring semester at Woodstock Cookie began talking about some "gut" or "bowel" pain she'd been having.  She got it checked out at the local hospital, and then went down to Dehradun, but the doctors reported that she had "irritable bowel syndrome".  I distinctly remember Cookie reporting on her pain to our house church one day, saying that she may end up going home for treatments...or maybe to die.  At the time I wondered if she was just being dramatic, but looking back I'm amazed at how God was preparing her heart even then to accept what would come.

About a month after we left India, Cookie was officially diagnosed with cancer.  They did a surgery in Delhi, but realized that she needed more extensive treatment so they packed up and head back to America.  We got to visit them twice in Kansas after they got home - once over Christmas break (where we helped butcher a pig and played lots of Settlers of Catan!), and once to see Cookie's art show (something that had been on her bucket list - she had her own photo gallery up of all her sweet India pictures!).

The two couples at Cookie's India art show...

Cookie with Chris' aunt Kathleen

So pretty :)

Totally wiped.

And then...at least it seemed like that quickly...Cookie died.  But mostly, Cookie lived.  She talked so much about living the best life she could in all areas of her life...and one of those areas was her death.  We only knew Cookie for about 2 years, but she SO deeply impacted us, and I think about how I hope to be like her some day.  She was adventurous, gracious, joyful, giving, accepting, hard-working, energetic, loving, caring, and hilarious.  Always up for the next thing, but never wishing for something that might have been. 

Love you Cooks. :)