Remembering
Julie Gilmore

Julie Gilmore left this world the same way she lived in it - full of grace, faith and, of course, etiquette. According to her friends Kyla and Robin Nelson, Julie loved etiquette - she loved writing about it and giving classes on it. In fact, Julie was an etiquette columnist in The TowneLaker and Sixes Living Magazine. Whether it was on cell phone etiquette or the importance of sending "thank you" notes, Julie's columns were well received and enjoyed by our readers.

Kyla was Julie's best friend, and they met at Wildwood Baptist Church in a mentoring ministry. "My husband met Julie before I did, and he never did this before, but he insisted, several times, that I meet Julie. He said we each reminded him of each other. How right he was," said Kyla. She met Julie in 2001 when she was first battling her disease, and they were inseparable ever since. "I may have mentored Julie spiritually, but she taught me about friendship," said Kyla. "All too often, we take friendships for granted. But not Julie. She cherished each and every one," she continued. According to Kyla, Julie's friends stretched forever starting with ones she met in grade school.

Julie was diagnosed with sarcoma in December 2000, a year after marrying her husband Kerry. It started as a lump on her arm and eventually moved into her lungs. She was treated aggressively at a clinic in Houston and seemed to have won the battle when she was declared free of cancer in December 2003. However, this respite was short lived - Julie's cancer came back with a vengeance in the Spring of 2004. She again, fought the battle. She was a faithful member of the Wildwood Baptist Church, and she enlisted the prayer of more than 4,000 people. In fact, Wildwood raised $30,000 to send Julie to Germany for specialized chemotherapy treatment, which she was to receive in two increments. She made it to the first increment, and before she was to leave for the second, her doctors informed her she was too weak to travel and recommended home hospice care for her remaining days. Even with all of the prayers and doctors' expertise, Julie lost her hard fought battle in September.

Even though Kerry didn't have a lifetime with Julie, the memories they created and the love

they shared will certainly last him a lifetime. "She taught me so much about friendship and what it means to be a friend. She taught me about love and how to be a husband. She also taught me how to reach out to people with different backgrounds other than myself," he said. He described his wife as a tremendous encourager, and even through her illness, she was a constant supporter to Kerry. "Our relationship grew very strong, and even now that she's gone, it still continues to grow. The more I think about her, the more I love her." Kerry has an extremely strong support system of friends and family, which help him cope with his loss. While the loss of Julie is tremendous to those who knew her, there is not the sense of tragedy because she filled their lives with so much, and it's a constant in each person who knew and loved Julie.

Julie was originally from Illinois and graduated from Bauder College in Georgia. She worked for Lord and Taylor and eventually in Human Resources at Coca Cola, until she was diagnosed. As mentioned above, Julie had a real love and affinity for etiquette. Kyla and Robin recounted a story where Julie gave her final etiquette lesson. "It was about 3 a.m., and Julie had been given morphine for the pain. She suddenly got up, took her oxygen out of her nose, and proceeded to give those of us there a lesson on the proper way to eat a roll and the proper way to shake someone's hand. It was a wonderfully lighthearted moment we will remember forever. It was the pure essence of Julie at that moment," they said.

Julie's nickname was "Jules" and Kyla said that fit her perfectly. "Julie was and always will be a jewel."