Lucy Kelly Obituary

Lucy Felicity Kelly, 58, died Sept 26 at a rehab facility where she was learning to walk again after spending a month in the hospital with pneumonia She had also been fighting brain cancer for five years Lucy was born in London, England She had two brothers, Francis and Matthew and a sister Mary She played the piano and viola and graduated from the University of Sheffield with a degree in music After graduation, she moved to London where she took a job with the Borough of Westminster That's where she met David Kelly, a young American, who had recently graduated from Ohio State University with journalistic aspirations The two began dating and ended up working various jobs in London - bartending, cooking, waiting tables and working the elevators at the Cafe Royal in central London David was eventually hired as a teacher in Cairo, Egypt and got Lucy a job at the same school They later married and moved to a small town in Massachusetts where David worked as a reporter and Lucy at a trucking firm The couple later moved to Boston, Washington D C , New Jersey back to Egypt for three years, San Francisco, Southern California and Colorado as David pursued various newspaper jobs eventually landing at the Los Angeles Times They had two children, Nicholas and Theodora Lucy started her own organizing business called Joyful Surroundings She focused on people on the hoarding spectrum Her immense kindness and patience persuaded them to let go of items cluttering their homes and causing distress in their lives She wrote a column for the Longmont Times Call about decluttering and had a popular blogpost Lucy didn't watch TV and rarely sat down She was diligent about details and kept files on everything imaginable She carefully cut and pasted every story her husband wrote and put it in a filing cabinet Scrapbooks were filled with photos and trinkets of their travels - Egypt, Israel, Libya, Yemen, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Guatemala, Mexico She eventually became an American citizen, something she was intensely proud of Lucy had a sharp wit and terrific sense of humor She was smart and well-read yet very down to earth She always looked for the good in people and was never short on kindness to those in need If she could help, she would help Lucy and David were married for 37 years When asked why it lasted so long she said they never ran out of things to talk about It was true They both could be stubborn and slow to compromise but always overcame disagreements and stayed together during some very tough times including when David battled his own cancer The central joy of her life was music and her children She loved family vacations in Big Sur, CA her favorite place She even walked off with the key to the hotel room where the family often stayed It hangs on a wall at home Room 28 Lucy was happiest strolling atop clifftops above the Pacific with David, Nicholas and Theodora One Thanksgiving, the family walked through a eucalyptus grove to a cliff above a blue sea and ate turkey sandwiches Sea gulls wheeled above and sea lions barked below Lucy also sang in the Cantabile Choir in Boulder as well as others She had a lovely voice and often quietly sang around the house She performed in concerts all around Boulder Five years ago, Lucy was diagnosed with glioblastoma or stage four brain cancer Her doctor told David she had maybe two years to live Lucy asked her husband never to tell her the prognosis Five years followed where she was cancer free She never stopped working, believing she was helping people get unstuck from persistent thought patterns, freeing them to live their lives to the fullest Lucy fell hard for people She adored her friends and her doctors including Meghan Liel, Susan Taylor and Sonja Hellman who worked so hard to take care of her physically and mentally Still, nothing compared to her children She would lay in bed with her daughter Theodora, 22, and talk for hours about life, college, boyfriends Nicholas, 27, would read her the Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter He read to her every day in in the hospital She looked forward to his arrival His last gift to her came from the Denver Rock and Mineral Show - a carved piece of alabaster-like stone with a round, Middle Earthian door etched on the front and the words `In a hole in the ground lived a Hobbit' written above We will miss Lucy for the rest of our lives To to the family or in memory of Lucy Felicity Kelly, please