Brenda K. Nichols
December 30, 1955 - Sept. 7, 1971

This embroidered LOVE cloth was made by Brenda in 1971. On the back our step-sister in law wrote:

Dear Brenda,

Perhaps you can find a closet to hang this first try at embroidery. When you see it, I hope you can believe that many people love and care for you.


“A bell is not a bell
till you ring it.
A song is not a song
till you sing it.
Love in your heart is not put
there to stay,
For love is not love till you give it away.”
Oscar Hammerstien

“Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.” Abraham Lincoln

“Happiness is like a butterfly.
The more you chase it and chase it directly.....the more it will always elude you. But if you sit down quietly and turn your attention to other things them it comes and softly sits on your shoulder.” Dr. Murray Banks

Love to you always,

Kathy and Martin
June 1971

Brenda was born one year and 15 days after my birth. I shared her life for 15 years. Today Brenda would turn 50 if she were still alive. I’ve lived 34 years without my younger sister. And yet.....her birth, her life, and her death still shape who I am and how I relate to my family, my husband, my world, and my God. Her life and her death are one of the more significant events in my life. Rarely do I go through a day without thinking about Brenda, without being reminded in some way of her life. I often dream of her and everywhere I look I see her face. I see her in the eyes of young teenage girls who are rebellious and uncertain about who they are and world they live in. I see me and Brenda in the lives of sisters who hate each other with a passion as strong as their love for each other. I see Brenda’s life reflected in the anxious faces of parents who fear their children may be beyond their love and care and reach. I see Brenda in the lives of 50 year old women who are in trouble and never got beyond their disappointments and unhappiness with life.

I see Brenda’s face in the mirror as I look in my own eyes. I‘ve heard people say you always feel responsible when someone close to you commits suicide. It is true. For too much of my life, I wondered what I could have done or should of done to prevent her suicide. As I’ve grown in my life mentally and spiritually, I’m able to put that responsibility and guilt into perspective, but I still wish things were different. I miss Brenda. The loss of her life has in some ways stunted my ability to relate with the rest of my family. It is often like I don’t want to get too close or intimate with anyone in case they should die and I am left again with the burden of loneliness and pain.

A generation has passed since her death. We now have a new generation of sisters in our family, my three nieces. I pray for them often as they mature and enter our world. That the pain and heartache of life will be balanced by the joy and love of their family and the peace and love of God. Life is difficult. But the “measure of our humanity is the distance we must travel in our lives, time and time again, ‘twixt two extremes of passion - joy and grief,’ as Shakespeare put it.” (Barbara Kingsolver Small Wonders pg 19). I hope and pray the grief I’ve known from the losses in my life will result in greater love for those close to me and a greater love and service to our world. In other words, I pray I will be a better human because of the life and death of Brenda.


NAMPA GIRL, 15, PERISHES AS RESULT OF GUN SHOT WOUND
Sept. 7, 1971 Nampa, Idaho Newspaper
Nampa, Idaho - A 15-year-old Nampa girl died at her home this morning of a gunshot wound which Canyon County Corner R. George Wolff said was “probably accidental.” Brenda K. Nichols, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. John Curtis, 1412 11th Ave. So., was shot in the head at approximately 9:20 AM, Wolff aid. She was alone, although her mother and possibly other family members were in the house, according to Wolff. The coroner said the investigation is continuing and that a final report will not be made “for a day or two.” Services are pending at the Alsip Funeral Home.