Our Angel

This week I'll be posting the letters the kids and I wrote for Karl's memorial service in New York that his family gave him.
I heard it was beautiful and not a dry eye in the place.
I know many of you would have loved to have attended, believe me, we would have too.

I'll start out with mine and add the boys tomorrow.



"A Loving Tribute to My Beautiful Angel…

First, I would to thank all of you for blessing us with your being here today.

I could probably go on for hours telling you all about my husband, Karl, but I’ll try to keep it short and sweet because if I don’t I will for sure hear his voice say, “Kim…will you please get to the point!”.

You may have noticed we call him “Vinny” a lot. It was a family joke in our home.
One day, maybe a year or so ago, Karl on some crazy impulse decided that “Vinny Provolone” {yes, like the cheese} was to be his new “alter ego”.
Vinny, my handsome, funny, romantic, incredibly sweet & sober new man. I instantly became his “Isabella” or “Izzy” as he mostly called me. Actually “Dizzy Izzy” was more like it but lets not go there.

No, Karl didn’t have even a smidgen of Italian in him but to watch him stuff bread sticks in his cheeks at The Olive Garden and recite “The Godfather”, you’d never know it.

I remember one day, last summer, while on a shopping trip to Sams Club we couldn’t find the kids. We were ready to leave and apparently Kody, Kolin and Kaysha were still hitting up every free sample booth in the store. Karl decided to have a little fun with that and promptly went to the front counter and had them announce loud and clear, “Would the children of Vinny Provolone please get to the front of the store, your Dad says it’s a long walk home”.
Yes, they were embarrassed to the max, but they never did get lost again.

Karl had quit drinking two years ago. He was a proud member of AA. They made a huge impact on his life and in turn made a huge impact on our lives as well.
I will admit it took a while to get used to this new and improved sober healthy man, but I am so glad I did.
Straight out, he was perfect. We had the perfect marriage. So many people and co-workers of his used to tell us they were actually jealous of the way we would still act like two love struck teenagers. They said we had the greatest love story ever and we did.
When he was asked for advice, {and even when he wasn’t asked} Karl would tell people “Never lose that spark, the one that started your relationship in the first place. It’s easy to lose and if you do, you got to find it and never, ever be quick to give up”.

My Vinny kept that spark alive till the day he left as the very last words we spoke to each other about an hour before he died were simple and honest “I love you”.

I miss and love that beautiful man more then words on a piece of paper can ever describe.
Walks on the beach holding hands, our coffee time together before the kids woke up, sharing his chocolate stash in bed at night, complaining how we couldn’t seem to lose weight {darn that sweet tooth and chocolate stash!}, laughing, looking into each others eyes and saying “I love you” without ever speaking a word, “Baking Mondays”, his threats of cutting me off from new shoes {although he never followed through on any of them, in fact on Christmas morning, three days after he died was a wrapped up box from him to me with, what else but another new pair of shoes}, acting silly in stores, his delicious grilled chicken cutlets, the way he’d bake me a cherry pie for no reason other then I loved his cherry pie, his long hair and his long hugs…these are just a few of the things that I miss so very much.

Vinny was my sweetheart, my best friend, my lover and my soul mate. I believe with all my heart, because of the “gifts or signs” he still leaves me, that he is still with us.
I know in my heart that we were always meant to be soul mates and that one sweet day we will be reunited to spend all of eternity together.
I can promise you that day the stars will twinkle and shine brighter because I will be back in the arms of the man who stole my heart {and took a huge piece of it with him} thirty one years ago.

To our family in New York, thank you so much from all of us here in Florida for honoring the memory of my sweet Angel and especially to Karl {Dad} and Donna for giving this incredible man to me all those years ago.

Bless you all.

With love,
Kim a/k/a “Izzy” a/k/a “Vinny’s Girl Forever”."