Wrangler Dani

I need to write more about this later, but in case you haven’t yet heard, Adam and I just got back from Texas, where we said good-bye to somebody every special.

This is the story I wrote for the service at my father-in-law’s request:

Linda (Nichols) Zakaryan’s life was marked by her joy, irrepressible spirit and strength of character.  She was born to Charles and Katy Nichols on January 22, 1949 in Fort Worth, and grew up in Fort Worth, attending South Hills Elementary, Wedgwood Junior High, and Paschal High School.

In 1971, she graduated from TCU with a degree in Home Economics. The same year, she began her nearly 40-year teaching career with the FWISD, where she taught for 2 years before moving to Southern California in 1973. She married Ted Zakaryan in 1974, and we know she really loved him because even though she was a die-hard Horned Frog fan, she fell in love with a strong USC loyalist. She made a happy life for her family in her new state of California, raising two wonderful kids, Brent and Jill. In 1991, she resumed her teaching career in the Orange Unified School District and had been teaching high school English ever since.

These are the facts about Linda, the pieces of her life that are easy to write down. But the things that we love about Linda and the things that we will always remember, are less easy to relate.

For Jill, Linda’s daughter, she was her confidante, best friend, reliable source of wisdom and loving embraces. For Brent and Kim, her son and daughter-in-law, she was “Grandma Linda” to her grandbaby Asher, born in 2009, a willful participant in the spoiling of her only grandson and a loving matriarch. To Ted, her husband, she was a life-partner, a source of joy and stability, a partner-in-crime. For all of us in the Nichols and Zakaryan families, she was the rock; the honest, sensible, joyful sister, the first one to laugh, to give hugs, to good-naturedly tease and to offer selflessly everything she had to give.

In Linda’s life, relationships were of utmost importance. She loved being a grandma, a wife, a mom, an aunt, a sister, a daughter and a friend. She took hold of life with gusto, whirling through her days with trademark joyfulness. She was a faithful servant of her church family, and she loved the Lord with all of her heart.

Love marked all of Linda’s life. We will miss her strength and honesty, her loving advice, and her warm hospitality.

Thank you, Lord, for blessing us with your daughter, Linda, for 61 beautiful years. Though we will miss her with all our hearts, we know that she is free and blessed in Your presence, that as You promise, all pain is gone and You have given her perfect peace. We know that she and her father, Charlie, are together in Your presence, and that someday, we will see her again, waiting for us with her arms outstretched and heart open to us, just as we remember her.