When Great Trees Fall

I received this poem from a friend who also lost her best friend about 9 years ago.

When Great Trees Fall – Maya Angelou

When great trees fall,
rocks on distant hills shudder,
lions hunker down
in tall grasses,
and even elephants
lumber after safety.

When great trees fall
in forests,
small things recoil into silence,
their senses
eroded beyond fear.

When great souls die,
the air around us becomes
light, rare, sterile.
We breathe, briefly,
see with
a hurtful clarity.

Our memory, suddenly sharpened,
examines,
gnaws on kind words
unsaid,
promised walks
never taken.

Great souls die and
our reality, bound to
them, takes leave of us.
Our souls,
dependent upon their
nurture,
now shrink, wizened.
Our minds, formed
and informed by their radiance,
fall away.
We are not so much maddened
as reduced to the unutterable ignorance
of dark, cold
caves.

And when great souls die,
after a period peace blooms,
slowly and always
irregularly. Spaces fill
with a kind of
soothing electric vibration.
Our senses, restored, never
to be the same, whisper to us.
They existed. They existed.
We can be. Be and be better.
For they existed.


God blessed our lives by sharing Melinda with us for a short time. And we are forever changed by knowing and loving her.

~Chasity Vaughan

Remembering Melinda on TV

Fox 25 in Oklahoma City just did a great piece on Sandi Troup and the SHOUT organization she co-founded. She talks about many of the same things she mentioned in her memory below, and she shows off the Live, Love, Smile memory bracelets that Becky designed for Team Evans this year. From all reports, the Race for the Cure was a big success this year in OKC. Team Evans had at least 145 people walking in honor of Melinda, the biggest non-corporate group there from what we here. The video is embedded on the Fox 25 website so I can't post it here, and it is at the top of their "Top Stories" section until a new Top Story comes along. I think I may have found a solution.

To see Sandi's video follow my easy 3-step guide.

1) Highlight the "paragraph" below this step and copy it into your clipboard (Ctrl-C on Windows computers)

javascript:selectvideo('320x240,kokh_top_stories_BreastCancer.flv',story0,'','',417)

2) Go the the Fox 25 Top Stories page by following the link below step 3. (You have to read Step 3 before you go.)

3) Paste (Ctrl-V) the contents of your clipboard into your browser's address bar at the top and hit Enter. The SHOUT video should play.

Fox 25 (OKC) Top Stories video page

A Great Friend

My first memories of Melinda were a long time ago at the OU Outreach Center. At that time, I didn't know them personally, but her and Mark were around occasionally and even then, I knew there was something special between the two of them.
Anyways, my life went on, and several years later, I met my husband and we got married and started looking for a lifegroup to join. We ended up finding the Evans/Vaughn lifegroup, and never went anywhere else. Over the years, our lifegroup "multiplied" and we found ourselves in a small group with just a few families. It was then that I began to really get to know Melinda. She was so awesome! I have never met anyone more honest, more heartfelt, and more positive. She cared about people, all of them, and always had a listening ear or shoulder to lean on. I always knew I could count on her for anything, and she was the one I called when I went through a tough time in my marriage. Her support and comfort meant the world to me, and I will never forget it. It is no surprise that a few years later, when I was pregnant, she was the one I wanted to talk to. Everyone who knew Melinda could not miss the fact that she ADORED her children, and that being a mom was the most important thing to her. I feel like Melinda shared so much, and although many days I am very sad that she is not still here sharing life with all of us, I know that she would want us to celebrate her life and love her kids as much as she did. I miss you so much, Melinda, and thank you for all the comfort, advice, love and laughter that you shared with me. ~Kim Guenther

Putting Others First

Melinda and Mark have always put others before themselves, and have always been genuinely concerned for others. I went to visit Melinda in the hospital the last day she was in ICU before moving to a regular room. She was tired and still losing her breath if she spoke too much. I wanted to know how she was doing and everything that was going on, but Melinda just kept asking about me and my family. She never forgot what was going on in my life, even if it had been a month since we last talked. Melinda wanted to know how we were doing and how Paul was holding up. My father-in law passed away July 7, 2007 and Melinda was the first person I called. It was 6:30 am that we found him and I called her at 6:45 am and asked her if she could come pick up our three little girls. She said "Sure, let me brush my teeth and I'll be right over." She was here by 7 o'clock. Her and Mark watched the girls for us all day so we could get things in order around the house and have some time to cry before trying to comfort our girls. I just want to say thank you Mark and Melinda for all you have done. I hope that in some way we can be as much of a blessing to others as you have been to us. Melinda I will miss you dearly and was blessed to have encountered such a wonderful friendship in this lifetime....We love you Mark, Marli, Marcus, and Manning and are here for you if you need us.

LaRee Whitfield

Loving On People

In early June 2007, I received a call from my friend Mark on a Friday afternoon asking if he and Melinda and the kids could stop by and bring something to Adrianne and I. While I didn’t know exactly what they were up to, my gut feeling told me that our friends had decided to spend some time “loving on people” that afternoon. Although it wasn’t very difficult for me to guess what they were up to, I didn’t realize at the time how meaningful that event would become for Adrianne and I.

About a year earlier (and shortly after Melinda had been diagnosed with breast cancer), Mark and I were talking over lunch and the conversation turned to how cancer might affect their day-to-day lives. While some others (likely including me) might have decided upon a once-in-a-lifetime vacation or perhaps a new swimming pool for the backyard, Mark said that he and Melinda didn’t want to make any significant changes to their routine. He said that the main thing that they had discussed was that they wanted to “love on people” as much as possible because that was what was really important to them. Although I wasn’t completely sure I understood what that would look like, I knew that it would be a blessing to anyone who was on the receiving end of that decision.

It was not long before Adrianne and I got to see exactly what Mark meant. Mark and Melinda and the kids came over to our house that Friday afternoon in June with a basket filled with gifts which Melinda said were supposed to help reduce my anxiety after a very tough couple weeks for me. Earlier that day, I had resigned from my position at work in what had been a tremendously difficult decision. Sometime that week, Melinda had gone to the grocery store and bought Adrianne and I all kinds of wonderful treats – wine and cheese, crackers, cookies and other goodies just to name a few. I could tell that the gift was vintage Melinda – she told us a little bit about each item that she included and why she had included it, all the while beaming with a huge smile on her face. She wanted to know how the day had gone, how the news had been received by my co-workers and how I felt the change would work out for our family. Even though she could have asked me at our soccer game the next day, or Adrianne at a ladies’ event the following week or even Mark later that night, Melinda was genuinely concerned about me in a way that is all too uncommon for the rest of us.

While the snacks and goodies were all wonderful and disappeared from our pantry long ago, it is our memory of the circumstances in which we acquired them that has become a treasure to us. It of course reminds us of the day that we were “loved on” by our friends Mark and Melinda and encourages us to look for ways to “love on people” even a small portion of the way that Melinda did. This is only one of many “acts of kindness” that Melinda shared with us over the years that we knew her, but it is one that we will never forget. We miss you Melinda and have been forever changed to have counted you as our friend. With love, Mike and Adrianne Hodges

Melinda's First SHOUT Meeting

I think about Melinda all the time and in fact, I remember the first time I met her. It was at our very first Shout meeting in June 2006 at Cafe Nova. I think we were all nervous. She bounced in with a huge smile on her face and I thought, "Wow, this girl is awesome!!" I think she had even done chemo recently. I could tell she had an amazing spirit and a wonderful heart. We connected because we both have twin brothers and talked about how neat that was growing up because you always had someone to play with. Melinda came to so many of our meetings and always had the most upbeat and positive attitude. She was always so willing to help out with our group and even took Sandi food after surgery. I am so happy that Shout was an important part of Melinda's recovery, and she helped so MANY in return with their recovery. She sure helped so many during her short time here on earth. ~Molly Fritch

[ SHOUT was founded in June 2006 by two breast cancer survivors, Molly Fritch and Sandi Troup. Diagnosed at ages 31 and 32, they recognized a need for other young survivors to connect and set out to create SHOUT: Strength, Healing, Optimism, Understanding...Together]

Normal Activities

Melinda had surgery in early May 2007 to begin the breast reconstruction phase of her recovery. Almost immediately after the six week waiting period after surgery, Melinda was on the phone to the doctor's office begging him to let her play soccer again. Her reasoning was basic - the doctor said she could return to her "normal" activities after six weeks had passed. Since she had been playing soccer right before her surgery, playing again was normal in her mind. The doctor disagreed but ultimately told her that there was nothing he could do to stop her from playing and reminded her to be careful and try to avoid any kicks to the chest. Melinda wasted no time making up for lost time. In her first two games back, she scored a combined 7 goals. Even though she missed a good part of the season, she still ended up as one of the leading scorers in the league as our team marched to the championship. ~Mark

Dating My Friend

Because we grew up in the same town, I have a few early memories of Melinda but my interest in her started when we were freshmen in high school. Melinda and I went to different middle schools and so our freshmen year was the first year we were together in school. I had asked a friend at church who went to the other middle school if there were any cute girls that I should track down once school started. He gave me one name: Melinda Watters. I took one look at her in choir class and decided that he was on to something. Since I was scared, I did the only thing I could think of - I asked my friend to ask her if she was interested in me. Anyone who has seen a picture of me from that year in school will not be surprised at the answer I got back - not interested. Anyone who knows Melinda will not be surprised at what happened next. In my embarrassment, I was determined to avoid Melinda at all cost. In my mind, she had rejected me. Melinda had other plans. She knew even then that you couldn't base romance on first impressions (thank goodness for me!). She made me get over my embarrassment by forcing me to be her friend.

Over the next few years, Melinda became my best friend. We occasionally went on "dates" together during our freshman and sophomore years - mainly when neither of us were dating anyone else. In some ways, I had given up hope of ever really dating Melinda because I assumed that her initial feelings for me continued. At some point over our sophomore and junior years, Melinda's feelings for me changed from "just friends" to potential dating material. I was too thick headed to see it but fortunately she didn't give up on me. I remember going on one of our "dates" in December of 1992. I don't recall where we actually went but we were dressed up - she wore a velour green dress (I probably used a line like "Is that felt? Well now it is" as I rubbed the material between my fingers). At the end of the date, we kissed - just a quick peck. Even I could figure out that we were no longer just friends after that moment. A few weeks later, we went on our first real date. I took her ice skating in Tulsa at the Williams Center. She wore a pink sweater and I remember accidentally causing her to fall by trying to show off my skating skills. She forgave me and between Christmas and New Year's Eve, we agreed to be boyfriend and girlfriend. I'm convinced that the early years of our friendship made us the couple we were. From the moment we started officially dating, I never felt more comfortable with a person - nothing like the awkward teenage relationships that most of us remember from high school. She was so wonderful.
~Mark

The Mega Wedgie

We cam to visit Melinda and her family in June and we went to Whitewater Bay, a large outdoor water park in Oklahoma City. Near the end of our visit, she challenged Mark and I to ride the Mega-Wedgie - a 277 foot steep slide with a 64 foot near-free fall slide. The slide looked daunting, but at the beginning of Melinda's ordeal last year, I vowed that I could be at least as tough & brave as her. I've never had to face what she had to face, so I don't know if I am that brave. But I could at least face the same huge waterslide. She went first of course, then mark, then me. Let's just say they don't call it the Mega-Wedgie for nothing :). She has also been my inspiration while training for the Race for the Cure. A rough day on the treadmill doesn't begin to compare to a rough day of chemo or radiation. She'll hopefully always inspire me. -Jason Evans

Getting Off The Bench

I have a few memories of Melinda that I wanted to share.

I hope I never forget the Christmas that she organized our life groups to adopt a family for Christmas. She took the time to call the parents and find out about the needs and wants/interests of the kids. Then she talked with each life group family and assigned us a family member to buy Christmas gifts for. We all got an extra state tax refund that year and we committed to using that money for this family's Christmas. Chasity, Melinda and I took our kids to deliver the gifts. It was such a wonderful feeling to give to this family in a meaningful way. Melinda helped bring together several families to do a good deed, and she included her children in the act of kindness. She took time to get to know about that family and to talk with them about what Alameda had to offer and invited them to join us at church. I don't know if they ever made it, but I feel certain that the time spent and the thought in the gifts touched that family more than we will know.

Just typing all this has given me an amazingly strong desire to call Melinda and chat. There is a part of me that always wondered if she would go back to nursing after the kids were in school. I am a family doc and thought she would be a great nurse to have! She was so excited for me when I started looking for a job closer to home and she encouraged me along the way. This was all during her diagnosis and treatment last year. When I finally found something close to home, she was so happy for me and encouraged me even more. I miss her. She has really inspired me to "get off the bench" as Rusty put it. I am a better person for having known her. There was a time when I was really dissatisfied with my job and shared with my life group that I was feeling kind of depressed. Melinda was a great listener. She then sent me a card out of the blue one day to encourage me. It was so sweet and really uplifted me. She had a great knack for knowing what I needed at different times. I am so thankful.

In April of this year I developed a mass in my neck. The ultrasound was inconclusive, and the radiologist suggested a biopsy to rule out lymphoma. I was pretty nervous. The first thought was, "My kids need their mom" and my second was, "How will I afford to fight cancer?" (Being the family breadwinner was not one of my incentives for choosing medicine!) Although I didn't tell many people, I needed to tell Melinda. I knew that she would pray for me, and I suppose I felt that she would know best what I really needed, as she had been through the biopsy phase before. And, she knew what was on the other side, and I needed her intersession, because I wasn't really sure how to pray. She hugged me and said, "Thank you for telling me. Let me know how it goes." She thanked me for sharing my burden. This was around her PET scan time, so she had already been through so much, and she still wanted to share my burden. Thankfully, it was only a thyroglossal duct cyst and not lymphoma. I chose not to have it removed, as it went down and I didn't want to have that surgery unless it was absolutely necessary. Melinda was even great about that, not making me feel petty or spoiled that I could chose whether or not to have a surgery that altered my appearance and put me out of commission for a couple of weeks. She had no choice about a sensitive appearance-altering surgery and the major inconvenience of chemo and radiation. What grace!

Thanks for this outlet. I hope that these are helpful in the story-gathering endeavor and can be used to help form the picture of who Mommy is to Marli, Marcus and Manning as they grow.

Misty Hsieh

Please Share Your Memories

While I wanted one place to put several links to some of the online resources recently developing about Melinda, I also wanted this site to become a place to post memories about Melinda. Please share yours with everyone. You can of course comment on any of these posts, but if you have your own memories you'd like to share, please email them to me at jevansfp{at}gmail.com (substitute the "at" symbol for the {at} in your email software).

I'd also like to highlight another blog - the Melinda Evans Update blog. This provided valuable updates on Melinda's condition as it unfolded in the hospital the last few weeks. Now it is a rally point for efforts to raise money and awareness to fight this disease. Find it at melindaevansupdate.blogspot.com.

Melinda's Journey Video

This video was also assembled by her friend Pam with Melinda's input and was featured at an evening meeting at her church. They played this video as an introduction to what many present there already knew, then they spent the evening telling her story on the stage in front of the church in big comfy chairs. She wanted to encourage the women present to get screened regularly for this disease, and was willing to bare her soul to get that message out.

Melinda's Memorial Video

Melinda's husband (and my brother) Mark, along with help from Melinda's family, helped pick the pictures and I helped scan in the prints. Friends from his church, Pam and Adrian, came over the day before the funeral and put the slides to music. It was a perfect song. Melinda's legacy lives on in the hearts of the family and friends that she touched, in the man that she loved, and especially in the children that she brought into this world and loved so fiercely. It played on big screens at the front of the church during her funeral. It was a beautiful moment, have her big smile shine down on us there. Making it simultaneously made me very happy to see her smile, and hurt my heart that all I had were these pictures and my memories of her. -Jason Evans

In Memoriam

This is the end of what has been a long week. Our sister-in-law, Melinda, lost her battle with breast cancer last Friday. She'd been sick in the hospital following a routine reconstructive surgery, showing many of the signs of liver failure. After her death, we found out that it was recurrent cancer that had attacked her liver. The rest of her body could not keep up. We started making flight arrangements when we heard that she had gone from sick but stable, to critically ill. We did not make it there before she passed, but we all got on a plane anyway to be with our family.
Melinda was a wonderful mother to her 3 young kids, an amazing wife to my brother, a loving aunt to our kids, and a caring sister to us. We came to Oklahoma City to honor her and to be with our family - especially my brother and his children. Her beautiful service on Wednesday was led by their church's preacher and we laid her poor body to rest on a lovely hill by a lake. Wind chimes rang in a nearby tree and there were lots of flowers perfuming the air on this warm, yet breezy day. She would've thought it was beautiful. She would not want us to hurt for long. We took the kids to a family fun center/pizza place last night and blew off a lot of steam from all of the preparations that led up to her service.
The rest of our lives begins now. The news we got last night - that it was recurrent cancer that destroyed her liver - felt like this horrible monster that came around the corner to snatch her, just when we thought she had licked it. While this is very upsetting news, it also provides a bit of closure, and with it hopefully, a bit of peace.
Melinda didn't cause this in choosing the surgeries that she did, decisions she and the family made when she was hospitalized didn't cause this, and the doctors treating her these past few weeks didn't make a mistake that caused this - rather they kept her with us for 3 more weeks with their heroic efforts. Time to see her kids, hug her family and friends - for us, one last phone call. We just didn't know at the time that we were saying goodbye.
I told my mom after we heard the news that she is the last one this monster gets to take. To honor my children's Aunt Melinda, my Aunt Carolyn, and my grandmother Reba - we have to find a cure. Please join me in your hearts today in this mission. Tell your friends and family to get checked regularly for this disease. Raise money for research to find a cure. Tell those that ask about your efforts about this 31 year old wonderful woman that got too short of a life here, and that you don't want that to happen to anyone else if it is in your hands to eliminate this monster from this planet.
Her obituary is beautiful and is online here and reprinted below. The blog that updated us about her health, and now will update us on things we can do for the family and to fight this disease is here.
We want to thank Becky's parents for driving up from Austin to help us with the kids, the staff at my office for taking care of my patients when I suddenly had to leave, the friends who've offered us support back home, and the kids' school for understanding why they couldn't be there for their first week. We're coming back to our lives soon, but our lives have been forever changed. -Jason & Becky Evans

Melinda's Obituary

Melinda Marie Evans was called to heaven on Friday, August 17, 2007. Melinda was born on November 23, 1975 in Bartlesville, Oklahoma as daughter to Henry and Julia Watters and twin sister to Michael. She graduated from Bartlesville High School in 1994 and from the University of Oklahoma College of Nursing in 1998. On July 26, 1997 Melinda married her high school sweetheart, Mark Evans. The couple resided in Oklahoma City while maintaining an active presence in their church, Alameda Church of Christ in Norman. Melinda was a devoted wife, beloved daughter, cherished sister, and faithful friend, but above all, Melinda's highest calling was to mother her three precious children: Marli, Marcus, and Manning. Melinda was a strong Christian woman who was an example and an inspiration to all by leaning on Christ through every joy and trouble.

Melinda was diagnosed with breast cancer in April of 2006, which began her journey of surgery, treatment, and recovery. She maintained a zest for life, even through her treatment. During times of low energy, her most common question to friends and family was, "so, what am I missing?" and she used every available moment to spend time with her kids. Despite her situation, Melinda never let her own health problems keep her from comforting others in their own time of need. She genuinely cared for every person with whom she came in contact and served as a prayer warrior for countless friends and acquaintances.

Melinda was also known for her competitive streak, especially on the soccer field. She shared this activity with her brother, husband and many friends throughout the years and was in the process of encouraging her children to love soccer as much as she did. Melinda enjoyed every minute on the field, whether it was scoring a goal in her adult league games or coaching her children's YMCA teams.

Melinda was a wonderful mother and a blessing to all who knew her. Her legacy will live on through her children, and her Christian example will linger in the hearts of her family and friends.

Melinda was preceded in death by her grandparents, Anthony and Pauline Bauer and Henry and Vivian Watters. A memorial service will be held at 10 a.m., Wednesday, Aug. 22, at Alameda Church of Christ in Norman. In lieu of flowers, friends are contributing to Susan G. Komen for the Cure, 5005 LBJ Freeway., Ste. 250, Dallas, TX 75244 or www.komen.org. Havenbrook Funeral Home, 405-329-0101.

Send condolences online at http://www.havenbrookfuneralhome.com/Obituaries.htm