Funeral comments

At Anita’s funeral, ten people stood up and gave some remarkable testamonials about her life. I transcribed these and wanted to share them with everyone. (This is kind of a long one.)

Kirstin Larson

I’m Kirstin. I’ve been friends with Anita since law school. In fact, I sat next to her through many, many classes which was dangerous because she was so smart. Professors would call me and ask a question. I’d answer. Then they’d call on Anita and says, “Ms. Schick, please tell the class why Ms. Larson is wrong.” She would, with maybe a sideways glance and a smile for me.

When I tried to think of what to say today it was so hard because there’s just so much to say about her. So let me just try to stay with a few important things. One of the reasons it was such a pleasure to know Anita is because she had her priorities absolutely straight. For her, the number on thing in her life was her family. Her kids and Greg and all of you – her extended family. I have met many of you now and I have been hearing about how proud she is of all of you for years and years. I don’t have another friend who honors her family as much as Anita. Ben and Julia and Penny, your mom would share stories about you with me and she was just beaming with love and pride over the phone. You made her so happy and so proud. And Greg, Anita also cherished you. You were her partner in everything. She leaned on you as you leaned on her. You made her feel loved and cherished in return. And it was a pleasure for me to witness what a loving marriage you’ve had.

Anita was so excited about her new baby. And I know she would have done everything in her power to still be here today. But she told me many times that she knew that is was God who made the plans and that we mortals were arrogant to think that we made the plans. I will miss her profoundly.

Angela Crawford

Anita was one of my closest friends. We met at a law firm ten years ago and I can’t begin to express the impact that she’s had on my life both professionally and spiritually. As Greg knows, we spent a lot of long hours, late nights and dinners back then talking over things. Over the past few years, as our faith walk has increased, our talks have turned from professional issues to matters of the spirit and God and whether we’re living life the way that we’re supposed to. We often emailed scripture or inspirational messages. And because I don’t know if my words can express her beauty and brilliance and love and how that was such a manifestation of God’s glory, I want to share something that she emailed to me two months ago. She was a big fan of the writings of Warren Buffet and Rick Warren and C.S. Lewis and this is an interview with Rick Warren.

People ask me, What is the purpose of life? And I respond: In a nutshell, life is preparation for eternity. We were not made to last forever, and God wants us to be with Him in Heaven.

One day my heart is going to stop, and that will be the end of my body—but not the end of me.

I may live 60 to 100 years on earth, but I am going to spend trillions of years in eternity. This is the warm-up act – the dress rehearsal.

God wants us to practice on earth what we will do forever in eternity.
We were made by God and for God, and until you figure that out, life isn’t going to make sense.

Life is a series of problems: Either you are in one now, you’re just coming out of one, or you’re getting ready to go into another one.

The reason for this is that God is more interested in your character than your comfort.

God is more interested in making your life holy than He is in making your life happy.

We can be reasonably happy here on earth, but that’s not the goal of life. The goal is to grow in character, in Christ likeness.

And this is such, this is so Anita and so how she lived her life and how she shared her faith and she spirit with the rest of us. And I know we have all been meditating on God’s word over the past few days and I wanted to share, in addition to Anita’s words, the word of God from Matthew 25:21. From the parable of the talents.

“His master replied ‘well done good and faithful servant. You have been faithful with a few things. I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness.’”

My spirit knows that Anita and Peter were greeted in heaven by God and the angels with saying, “Well done my good and faithful servant. Come share in your master’s happiness.” And if there is anything that we can learn from her life and the way that she touched us and her spirit it is to live our lives so that we are preparing for eternity so when we leave this place and we are reunited with our father in heaven, we hear those words. “Well done my good and faithful servant. Come share in your master’s happiness.”
To Greg and Ben and Julia and Penny, to Mr. and Mrs. Parker to all of her siblings, thank you for sharing her with us. My life is so much better, my spirit is so much stronger because she touched it. God bless you and we will keep you in our prayers and our thoughts.

Bill Herder

Good afternoon. I’m Bill Herder. I’ve known Anita for several years now. I had the opportunity to meet her through our local business association. And she was not only a friend, she was my attorney. But the embodiment of what Anita represented has just been hit upon so well and that was just a fine description of Anita and her faith and spirit.

Anita would greet you with a hug and a smile, not a handshake in this politically correct time. It was so inviting to be embraced by her. She wouldn’t look at you as ‘how many billable hours are here waiting for me?’ She’d look at you, “How are you doing? Are you okay? Are things going well? How’s your family?” And you would ask the same. It’s just amazing to know that that kind of person was among us and touched us and I think that we all have to take that away with us in the scriptures that we read. Ben, the scripture about the heavy burden and the yoke and just so much looking to God and Jesus to help carry that and putting our faith there. It’s just…it’s what your mom was about and I think often times we ask “What would Jesus do?” We could just as easily ask ourselves “What would Anita do?” because she was right there with good counsel , good heart, good spirit, and I know that God’s faith and support is going to be there with all of us. While we miss her, she is alive in all of us. We’re so thankful for that. Thank you.

RJ Patel

Good afternoon. My name is RJ Patel. It’s been…like Bill, I met Anita through a business association. And the first time I saw her up on stage doing a 1-minute, for some reason, I said to myself, “I’m going to do business with this person.” I didn’t say lawyer, attorney, I said this person. ‘Cause something about her spirit drew me to her. I called her later that afternoon and I said, “I’m a small business guy. Do you do small business?” At the time I didn’t know. And she said yes, that’s what she specializes in. So I said, “Would you like for me to come to your office?” and she said is that “No, I will meet you at your business.” Well, at the time, two years ago, my business was nothing more than a slab on the floor. And so she comes in in her business suit and some heels and she’s walking around construction debris and dirt and mud. Never complained. She says to me “What’s your dream here? What’s your goal?” And just like Bill said, and many have shared, she wanted to know who you were, not what you did.

I’ve never known an attorney that wants to know who you are. And please, don’t take any offence to that if you’re an attorney. But I’ve been in this town called Kennesaw for 31 years and I have never met anyone as special as Anita. Friday, the day of her passing, I had an 11 o’clock appointment with her. So I called her. Obviously, no response but, Greg, if you’ll listen to the message, it says “Do you know where we’re meeting? I’m buying lunch, you can show up.” And I wish she had. I would have loved to have bought her lunch. It would have been my pleasure. But had I known, what had happened. She was an absolute professional and I knew something had to be drastically wrong for her not to text me, email me or call me. She’s a true human and a true professional. And for that, I’m gonna miss Anita.

Bobby Slotkin

Afternoon. I’m Bobby Slotkin. I worked with Anita for a couple of years at Holland & Knight and really got to know her after we had both left Holland & Knight. I started private practice and she did shortly thereafter and she called me out of the blue one day to talk about what she was going to do so we went to lunch to just, you know, kind of catch up friendship but also just to sort of talk about the law and what she was thinking about embarking on. And I didn’t know her as a person of faith before but I learned that day and from subsequent times that she really was a person of deep faith. So it made it easy to get to know her, be her friend on several different levels and we had a common experience. But we had a common faith as well. I can recall that she talked about the faith aspect of her starting her new venture. And, I mean, I can speak from experience and say that it’s scary. It takes a leap of faith. And she had it. She had the faith to do it but she was also so…she was a real person. She didn’t act like she had it all figured out. It was clear that she had feet of clay and she knew that she did but she was willing to take it on and she knew that she would be provided for and that grace would be sufficient for her. I guess that’s the best way to say it. I can recall, I think about a week or two before Penny was born, she and I met for lunch. I guess I had sort of lost track of the time of the pregnancy because she was pretty big at that point. So I said, “Wow, I’m sorry to drag you all the way out here,” and all this and just typical of her, she just had a huge smile on her face. She had client meetings she had come from, client meetings she was going to. She was about to give birth and life couldn’t be better. She just was…she was smiling that same smile that I always saw on her face and that I will always remember on her face.

There has been some discussion today about the fruit that she bore and I can honestly say from my experience with her that she bore the fruit of the spirit, the fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, goodness, meekness and temperance. And I will miss her very greatly.

Marcy Fried

Good afternoon. I’m Marcy Fried and my husband is Andy Fried. And I wanted to share something with you. We talk a lot about resumes and I think…I didn’t know Anita on a professional level. My husband did very well. She was also an incredible friend to my husband as he reminds me. He doesn’t make a lot of friends. He’s a wonderful guy but you’ve got to meet a pretty high standard. She’s also our attorney. And again my husband has a very high standard. I have never, ever heard Andy have the trust of your wife the way he did. But I’m looking at your children. I’m looking at the three of you and I have to tell you something. Mommy was very respected. Very smart, as you know and will always be respected and loved. But when we look at the three of you, absolutely, your mother was so proud of you. So, so proud of you and mommies – ‘cause I’m a mommy – mommies, the most important thing in the world to them is their children. And I look at your smiles and your voice and you did such a beautiful job. And just know that; that is absolutely the most important thing. So we’re going to pray for you. You’re going to have strength and you’re going to take care of daddy and he’s going to take care of you. And we love you. Okay?

Mark Barre

Good afternoon. My name is Mark Barre and I had the distinct pleasure of being Anita’s office provider. And I qualify that with the fact that one of the first things she said when she came in was that “I hate offices and I never want to be here.” But probably indicative of what RJ and others have been talking about is that she didn’t want to be in the office. She wanted to be out with her clients or out with her family. And, she…I wrote an email saying that we were going to be closed this afternoon and I said because of the loss of our friend and client. She had moved out of the client and into the friend phase in about 30 seconds with me. She’s just one of those people that plugged in and looked you in the eye and you felt a warmth and you felt a comfort and just a beautiful young lady. I’m glad to say that other people have experienced the whole family. We’ve got Team Schick in our place on a fairly regular basis. And I wanted to say to Julia and to Ben and to Penny that Miss Lynda’s candy box is there whenever you need it.

Sophie Evans

Good afternoon. I am Sophie and I met Anita in law school about 13 years ago. I was sitting at the table at the cafeteria and she came and sat next to me, introduced herself and started asking me questions. I’m usually pretty reserved but within minutes I had shared with her things that I had never shared with anybody else. And Anita was always like that. Wherever we went, she would start striking conversations with people. And she wasn’t just being polite or even just being social. She was genuinely very interested in the people surrounding her. Since then she has been an amazing friend. She was a very determined and strong minded woman. She worked so hard in law school and did extremely well.

I also remembered that she decided at some point to get in shape and she and Greg came to see us at our apartment and they were wearing the sweatbands and holding a Starbucks coffee. And they just looked very funny. But the thing is, they did it. And she just, you know, exercised so much afterwards and she was just amazing. But most of all, she always put her friends and family first. She was a friend I would ask for help if I needed it. And she would always talk about her family. She talked so much about you, Greg, and Ben and Julia and then Penny. And she would have talked so much about Peter too. And she shared so many stories about her mom and dad and her brothers and sisters. Sometimes she would worry about them. But so much time she was so proud of you. And I have to say, Mrs. Parker, I only met once at graduation before, but I have had so much of your wisdom in the last few years. I will miss Anita very much but I’ve been so blessed and so lucky to have been part of her life. Thank you.

Andy Fried

I’m Marcy’s husband, Andy. I can’t let my wife get the last word naturally. So I knew Anita from the Small Business Development Center. She was a client of mine. And she was so much more than a client. She was really a friend. And it is very presumptuous to think that Anita was my best friend because it seems like there’s about 100 best friends in this room. But she was. She was my best friend. And I was very selfish with her because as her consultant and as a client as well of hers, I felt it was my privilege that I can call her any time I wanted. I would call her 6:30 at night, 7:30 at night, 8:30 at night and I just wanted to hear her say “Hello, sunshine!” ‘Cause she called me sunshine. Who calls people sunshine? I just wanted to hear her call me sunshine. I didn’t care about her guidance. But I will miss her, a great deal. And I know there’s lots more that I can’t think of right now because my head’s clouded but she’s a sweet woman. God bless her. Thank you.

Rita Trumble

Hi, my name is Rita Trumble. I’m pretty much a stranger in the room. Sadly I can’t say I’ve known Anita for the last 20 years because I lost contact with her after I graduated high school in 1989 with her from Bellevue East. I didn’t know until after she had passed that she was here and had I known, I would have found her. Just to let the family know, I carry the hearts of the class of 1989 with me. She had such an impact on everybody, even 20 years ago, to carry it today. I’m sorry I had to meet you this way, but your wife was spectacular.