Kathy Susan Gardner
June 23, 1951 – July 30, 2014
Kathy Susan (Stokes) Gardner, 63, passed away on Wednesday, July 30, 2014, surrounded by family at her home in Woodway after a brief but courageous struggle with pancreatic cancer. Her life was celebrated at a reception from 4:30-6:00pm on Friday, August 1, and a memorial service at 2:00pm on Saturday, August 2, both at Lake Shore Baptist Church.
Kathy was born on June 23, 1951, to Lynn and Joy Stokes in Houston, Texas. A year later, the family moved to Dallas, where Kathy was active with her family at Hillcrest Baptist Church, attended public schools, and continued at Dallas Baptist University as a drama major. At age 16, she entered a life-long loving relationship with Steve Gardner, whom she had already known for many years at church. In 1971, Kathy and Steve married and moved to Austin, where Kathy supported Steve’s undergraduate education with jobs at Teacher Retirement System and a local TV/radio station. In 1974, they moved at Berkeley, California, where Kathy supported Steve’s graduate education with jobs at Berkeley Bioengineering and UC Berkeley. During that time, their son, Daniel, was born, and they also served as volunteer youth directors at Thousand Oaks Baptist.
In 1978, after a one-year stint in Grinnell, Iowa, the Gardners moved to the Waco area, where Steve joined the Baylor faculty, and Kathy was a devoted mother to Danny and a few years later to their daughter, Jessica. When the kids entered school, Kathy completed her undergraduate education as a sociology major at Baylor University, graduating fifth in her class, and then worked as a counselor for Consumer Credit Counseling Service and in several other positions. With their kids, Kathy and Steve traveled the world, including a long research visit to the Soviet Union in 1980 and shorter trips for work and/or leisure to China, Mexico, the UK, and many countries of Europe. Kathy was a long-time social director of the Bereshith class and a devoted volunteer in the children and youth programs at Lake Shore Baptist, where she was ordained as a deacon in 1993. She joined the youth on several mission trips, including one to New Orleans soon after Hurricane Katrina, volunteered her time and talents to Seeds of Hope Publishing and Waco Meals and Wheels, and supported many other organizations devoted to education, health, and social justice in the U.S. and abroad.
Kathy will be remembered for her unconditional love, especially of young people; her uninhibited laugh; her senses of fun and humor, even during times of incredible pain; her unassuming intelligence; and her passion for justice.
She was preceded in death by her parents.
Kathy is survived by her husband, Steve Gardner; son, Daniel Gardner and his wife, Sara, and son, Lucas; daughter, Jessica Gardner; brother, Richard Stokes and wife, Donna; sister, Charlotte Bristow and husband, Sandy; bother-in-law, Jim Gardner; sister-in-law, Jeanelyn Gray and husband, Doug; and many beloved aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, and countless friends.
The family wishes to thank the many professionals at Providence Health Care, Providence Hospice, M.D. Anderson, and Blue Cross who have provided care, comfort, and advice; friends and family across the U.S. and around the world who have offered hundreds of expressions of prayer and support; and colleagues at Baylor University who have made it possible for Steve to serve as a full-time caregiver for the past five weeks.
In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to Lake Shore Baptist Church; Waco Senior Ministries/Meals and Wheels; Seeds of Hope Publishers; or Family Abuse Center of Waco.
A tree was planted in honor of Kathy Gardner by the Youth Group in the Lake Shore Peace Garden on February 27, 2016.
From Sharlande Sledge:
Our beloved friend Kathy Gardner died at home, just five days after she entered hospice care and only five and a half weeks after her cancer was discovered. The progression of the disease was more rapid than anyone could have predicted, but even with all the time in the world, we would never have been ready for the tremendous loss of Kathy’s presence in our church family. Lake Shore’s heart hurts; we will miss Kathy more than we can express. We will remember her life as a gift of God and as a bright and shining light at Lake Shore.
Steve and Kathy and their children, Danny and Jessica, joined Lake Shore in 1986. Ever since then, Lake Shore has been blessed with their joyful, generous faith that has enlivened every part of our church. Kathy was ordained as a deacon in 1993. She was the long-time social director of the Bereshith class and a devoted volunteer in the children and youth programs at Lake Shore. She offered her gifts in ways as varied as serving on the Finance Committee to writing Advent meditations to washing dishes for Meals on Wheels. We will always remember Kathy’s unconditional love, especially for young people. She lived out this love by offering her time, teaching, and vibrant spirit to our youth — by teaching Sunday School, leading the Rite-13 group, and going on mission trips. To paraphrase Buechner, youth ministry seemed to be the place where Kathy found joy in offering her gifts to meet the need for youth to have a nurturing, completely accepting person in their lives. And her unconditional love, uninhibited laugh, deep faith, and sense of fun and humor were gifts upon gifts.
From Jessica Gardner:
When I left Austin for Waco last week, I packed a black dress. It is simple and comfortable, but I thought, “Will I really want to wear this in these coming days?” I’ve been superstitious about wearing black lately, and I wasn’t realizing how the next few days would go. So when mom passed, I thought it was convenient I had it, but as the days went by in planning, it didn’t sit with me right. My mother was an eccentric. She could be a little shy about her flamboyant, vampy youthfulness. She struggled with her perceptions of how people thought she should be. She struggled so hard with it, she would sometimes refuse to go somewhere where she shouldn’t wear her red flip-flops with the huge wedge sole. But there was no hiding anything when she laughed. I always go back to a night that I was a child upstairs in this church and most people had gone home. I didn’t have to worry where my mother was with her laughter ringing out, down the hall, around the corners, up the stairs, finding me, reassuring me, filling this whole building with joy and color and light. My mother was color, her bright blonde hair you could find in a crowd, red like her million shoes all organized in boxes and hand-labeled like a card catalogue of fun. Red like her passionate fury at the injustices reported by Jon Stewart. Deep blue like the ocean or her eyes or her soul when she shared with you her spiritual yearning and peace that can’t quite fold into words.
From Danny Gardner:
My mom was always camera-shy. Mark it among her many nonsensical insecurities – this wide-smiling, playful blonde with intense eyes and a verve for stylish clothes would avert and shrink a little almost every time a camera appeared. An exception was beach pictures. Whatever secret narrative most shots undermined was affirmed by one picture taken countless times over decades and on a dozen different beaches: Kathy, standing on Melville’s “extremest limit of land,” feet close together, chin held high, hair buffeted by wind and eyes stretching out to where the water drops out of sight, giving way to sky. It’s a profile taken from a little behind her, both maintaining a bit of mystique and inviting us to contemplate with her the rhythm of waves, the splash and churn around rocks, or the cosmic vastness of it all. There have been so many beaches – Santorini, La Jolla, Hawaii, Capri. In Galveston, we all held hands and watched a lunar eclipse – the moon’s light blotted from the sky even as its tidal pull splashed water about our feet. That’s as far as she usually went into the water, but in Cozumel, a beach riddled with conches tempted her into flippers and a mask. Peacocks roamed the beach, and as we watched her quietly paddle up and down the shallows and fishing up great spiraling shells, I sensed I had stepped into one of her vivid, narrative dreams. According to her wish, Kathy’s ashes will be scattered on the rocky coast of Carmel, near the Lone Cypress. It’s hard to imagine this beach babe who never really learned to swim, diving at long last into this greatest of oceans. From what I’ve read, tourists like myself aren’t allowed within forty feet of the Lone Cypress. We must content ourselves with a profile view taken from a little behind it, our eyes stretching out toward the cosmic vastness of it all. So, today, we hold hands together as under a moon eclipsed. Throughout her life, Kathy reflected celestial light onto every face in this room. Now, we find the heavens and the world below them a shade darker, so we weep, we rage, we huddle together. But listen! Our cries harmonize around her memory, shaping themselves into song. Yes, in my more pacific moments, I will ever feel her gravity’s subtle pull.