Everything she did, Karen Parsons Gray did with style. This wonderfully quirky, full-of-love-for-everyone-she-met woman left this world on Monday, August 27, 2018, at the age of 61, but she lived the biggest and most beautiful life while she was here.

Ask her kids Anna, Emily, Josh, and Melody for stories about countless games of spoons and vicious games of Mercy, nights at the Holiday Inn pool on childhood weekend trips, or disgusting brussels sprouts. Ask her grandkids Kennedy and Molly Kate about movie nights with their Grammie, followed by lots of cheese dip at Mi Hacienda. Mike Gray, her husband and best friend of 17 years, can tell you about biking countless miles with her on the Tanglefoot Trail, jumping in the car for last minute trips planned on a whim the night before, kayaking on Choctaw Lake, or cuddling with their dog Champ.

She was always either headed off on a new adventure or planning her next one, whether that was taking flying lessons for her first solo flight (which she also quickly decided was her last), floating in the blue waters of a Mexican ocean on a cruise with friends, touring the streets of old Havana in a 1959 red Ford Thunderbird, riding every single ride at Disney World except the spinning teacups, or playing a game of bunko.

Born in 1957 in Memphis, Tennessee, and raised in Carmack, Mississippi, by Pauline and Tommy Ward, she attended Holmes Junior Community College and graduated from nursing school at the University of Mississippi. She was a nursing instructor at East Mississippi Community College for more than twenty years, teaching generations of nursing students courage, compassion, and the true meaning of “bless your heart.” Even in her so-called retirement, she went on to work at the Cardiac Rehab unit at Baptist Memorial. Each and every nurse she worked with could tell you their own Karen stories, and we’re sure they will if you ask them.

She made us the lemon icebox pies she learned from her momma, the Brunswick stew recipe passed down to her from her daddy, and hard-as-a-brick cornbread from her momma’s momma’s momma’s momma. We will all be trying and failing to cook her fried chicken, her deer steak and tomato gravy, and her Thanksgiving dressing for many a family dinner to come.

She never met a stranger, and once she decided you were part of her family, you were in for life. She lives on in her husband, her kids, her grandkids, her daughter-in-law Jannell, her sons-in-law Michael and Jonathan, her sister Cheryl, her nephews Joey and Ryan, in the hundreds of nurses she trained, and in the countless souls walking this earth because of her work as a nurse and teacher. Everything she taught us made each one of us, Mississippi, and the world a bit brighter.

A visitation in celebration of Karen will be held at Welch’s Funeral Home in Starkville, Mississippi, on Wednesday night, August 29, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. We will continue the celebration with a memorial service on Thursday morning, August 30, at 10 a.m., which will also be held at Welch’s Funeral Home. A family graveside service will follow at Providence Cemetery in Carmack, Mississippi, where she will rest next to her parents.

Memorial donations may be made to the newly established Karen Gray Nursing Scholarship fund to support the education of future nurses (contact Bancorp South for details), and chicken wings may be eaten in her honor at Stagger In.