Kris Kuen­e­man was one of the first peo­ple I can ever remem­ber say­ing "Hi" to me dur­ing my first days as a stu­dent at Rocky Moun­tain High School. She was an incred­i­bly warm, car­ing per­son who did her best to accli­mate an incred­i­bly green (yes, believe it) sopho­more to the peo­ple, places and what­ever of high-school life.

Depend­ing on who you ask, maybe she did a good job.

While I can't hon­estly say that she got along with every­one she met, she did try extremely hard — and most of the time, unfor­tu­nately, not many peo­ple saw that. What I can truth­fully say, how­ever, is that she was a great friend to me, and I knew that in high school, that cer­tainly wasn't some­thing that you found very easily.

Kris always put the hap­pi­ness of oth­ers before her own — in fact, many times to her detri­ment. But she didn't care. That was just how she was. Peo­ple took advan­tage of her for it, but she took it bet­ter than most peo­ple would. Cer­tainly bet­ter than I.

After leav­ing high school, although we didn't talk or hang out often, we did see each other every once in a while and catch up. Like any­one, she hit some rough spots once get­ting out into the real world, but the girl was damn tough — and she tried to make the best out of what life threw at her.

Kris wasn't per­fect — far from it, in fact. She could be over­bear­ing, some­times even annoy­ing. But I truly believe that she always did it out of love. She was always there for me, and I did what I could to be there for her. Our rela­tion­ship was never one of romance — rather, it seemed to be a sim­ple unspo­ken bond: she watched my back, and I watched hers.

Once I trans­ferred to my cur­rent work loca­tion at the Foothills Mall, we saw much more of each other, and I can't think of a sin­gle time when there wasn't a smile on her face. It didn't really mat­ter what the sit­u­a­tion was; I knew that every time I saw her, I would be greeted with that same smile.

Lilly pow­ered that smile.

I believe that Lilly gave her a pur­pose — some­thing to look for­ward to, some­thing big­ger than her­self. She lived for that baby girl, and for good rea­son. Wow, was that baby ever cute. After what I can only describe as a rocky rela­tion­ship with Lilly's father, Kris was given the respon­si­bil­ity of rais­ing Lilly on her own, and although I didn't see it day in and day out, she did a damn good job.

Neigh­bors inter­viewed in the papers recalled that Kris had basi­cally escaped the fire, say­ing that she had made it to the bal­cony to escape the flames. One ten-foot jump, and it all would have been over. She would have been free.

Except for Lilly.

After a life­time of self­less acts for the good of oth­ers, Kris Kuen­e­man had one task left to per­form. She went back in to res­cue her baby, like any lov­ing mother would do.

That was the last time she was seen alive.

Kris Kuen­e­man (23) and Lilly Kuen­e­man (8 months) were pro­nounced dead early Sun­day morn­ing, July 31, 2005. The cause of death was ruled as smoke inhalation.

* * *

As I turned to walk away, the smell of the charred wood and the wind echo­ing behind me, a strange voice from above called out:

"Hey you!"

"Yes?"

"What are you doing here? Do I know you?"

"No," I said, quickly try­ing to hide the sad­ness in my voice and the tears in my eyes. Luckly, it was dark.

I was strug­gling to find words until she inter­rupted — "You look like death," she said.

"I, uh, knew the girl who died in the fire."

"Oh … I'm sorry. I only met her about three weeks ago … she was really nice."

"Yes, she was. I've known her for a long time."

"I'm very sorry … I guess I'm still in shock."

"Yes, well … I just found out today," I muttered.

"Oh wow … I'm really sorry."

"So am I."

I could feel the tears com­ing again.

"Oh, well you take care," she said.

"Thanks. You too. Goodnite."

* * *

On Sat­ur­day after­noon, just hours before she died, I saw Kris — and she was as bub­bly as ever, talk­ing about an old friend of ours that she had run into that day. I remem­ber laugh­ing to myself and think­ing, "Cool. I'll see you tomorrow."

I guess we can't count on tomorrow.

Depend­ing on who you ask, Kris Kuen­e­man was many dif­fer­ent things to many dif­fer­ent peo­ple. She was a won­der­ful mother, a depend­able con­fi­dant, a bitch, a prob­lem solver, a no-nonsense gal, a party ani­mal, and a close friend.

Kris, to me, you were many of these things — some­times more than one at a time — but that's what made you unique. That's what made you some­body that I always called a friend. You are some­one that I will never for­get. You made life inter­est­ing, com­pli­cated, and some­times tougher than it needed to be — and I'm sure that you wouldn't have had it any other way. Your life was cut short much too soon, but now you've got the best seats in the house to watch the rest of us stum­ble around like idiots.

I hope I don't dis­ap­point you.

And boy, do I wish that I had a chance to tell you all of this while you were here. These things never work out the way we want, do they? Well, it'll all keep.

I have a feel­ing you knew it all along anyway.

You bet­ter have some good sto­ries for me when I see you and Lilly on the other side. Until then, grab some pop­corn, prop your feet up, and enjoy. You've earned it, kid.

In Memo­riam
Kris and Lilly
July 31, 2005