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My husband Michael and I never had an empty house.

From our three beautiful children to our combined 15 siblings and an endless number of friends, cousins, and their partners and kids, our home was always bursting at the seams with love, joyful chaos and lots of food! Never was that more true than with the arrival of our precocious granddaughter, Kitanna, who has spent much of her life under our roof.

To call us a tight-knit family would be an understatement. So although not unexpected, Michael’s death in December 2019 came as an especially devastating blow.

We met when I was just 17 and were married with our first child by the time I was 20. We were blessed with our two sons, Stephan and Brian and our daughter, Jennelle. We always agreed that our children would be the center of our lives and they certainly were.

Michael was such a joy-filled man, and he loved nothing more than sharing his good fortune and spirit with others. We were completely blindsided when Michael was diagnosed with bile duct cancer in 2017, at just 64 years old. After what initially seemed like a successful surgery that fall, we were told Michael’s chances of survival were still only 1 in 4. We were devastated when the cancer returned only a year later – and it returned with a vengeance.

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