Gail Annette Horn Suhler, My Sister

Gail Annette Horn was born September 28, 1950 in Pueblo, Colorado. She was the younger sister of Paula and the older sister of Keith. She graduated from Centennial High School in 1968. She took piano lessons as a child and was a member of the local swim team.

Gail accepted the Lord Jesus as her Savior when she was a child. She also helped her mom with Bible Clubs that were held in the family home.

In high school Gail was a member of the high school band and played the cornet and later switched to the French Horn. She was an excellent musician. She took both French horn lessons and voice lessons.

In church she sang in the choir, sang special music and played in a church orchestra.

Gail attended Western Bible College in California and in Oregon. She completed a couple of years of school and later she attended Baptist Bible College in Springfield, Missouri and earned her degree.

As a young adult, Gail lived in Canon City, Colorado where she taught in the Christian school. Her students loved and admired her. She had great influence on many lives. She also worked at Park Hill Baptist church as a secretary and at a Baptist church in Michigan. She had a servant's heart and accepted people for who they were.

Gail was an avid reader all her life. She read comic books and novels as a child, and as an adult probably read thousands of books. Her husband Bryan still has a collection of her favorite books.

When Gail was about thirty years old, she married Bryan Suhler. Our mother had invited Bryan over for Sunday dinner and that was the beginning. They talked and talked. After they were married, Gail talked about how much she appreciated Bryan taking care of their finances because as a young woman who taught Christian school, she had had her struggles.

After being married a year or two, Gail and Bryan had a wonderful baby boy named Benjamin. She loved that little boy. Later when she knew she had cancer, she prayed that God would let her live until Ben was finished with junior high, and that's what He did. It was an answer to her prayer.

Gail and Bryan moved to Colorado Springs after living in Pueblo for a while. There she gave birth to Ben and she worked in her home running a day care. She was really good at it, and her kids loved her.

In about 1993 Gail found out she had cancer. The doctors didn't know where it started, but it was first found on the lining around her lungs. She had surgery to have it removed. When we sorted our mother's belongings after she passed away, we found a note Mom had written. Mom said that when Gail came out of the surgery okay, it was the best day of her life. Gail took that note home and kept it.

After many months of chemo and losing her hair several times, the cancer was found in her ovaries. She had extreme surgery to remove as much as could be done--about 99%. It seemed really good. Sometime after that, Gail had to switch doctors, and the new doctor thought she needed to take a break from the chemo to give her body time to recuperate and because Gail was so tired of all the treatments. That was in about May of 2000.

After that tests were run to see what was happening with the cancer, and Gail's whole abdomen was filled with tumors.

I went to visit her many times during that summer. I kept thinking that something would be done about the tumors--surgery, chemo, or something. But nothing was--nothing could be. Clear up to the end I didn't realize we were really coming to the end.

I drove down to see Gail on Saturday, September 3rd. She was uncomfortable but still functioning almost normally. On Monday, she fell and couldn't get up for hours. After she finally got up, she called Bryan. That evening she lost her ability to control some of her functions. He took her to the emergency room, but on the way there she quit breathing. She passed away on September 5, 2000. This is the 8th anniversary of her death.

When Bryan called, it broke my heart. I just couldn't come to grips with it.

At her funeral, a song recorded by Gail for her church was played during the service. That was very hard.

The good news is that Gail is in Heaven. I always did everything ahead of her, but she got to Heaven before me. I am so looking forward to seeing her. She is my best friend and I miss her.

13 Thursday Memories of My Sister

1. One time somebody marked on the window in the house in the condensation there. My mom made Gail and me sit in the living room behind the arm chair to discuss who had done it because one of us was going to be in trouble. My dad came home at lunch and said he did it accidentally.

2. My sister, a neighbor girl and I were in a beauty contest and two neighbor boys were the judges. Gail won. I lost.

3. My sister loved to read. She was a reader before I was. (She was two years younger than I was.)

4. I gave my sister a hard time sometimes, but when anyone else tried to bother her, I was there to take care of her.

5. When Gail was little she had big freckles, glasses and a gap between her two front teeth. She was a beautiful little sister.

6. Gail and I both took piano lessons and because I was older, I learned more quickly. As a result she wasn't very interested in learning piano. As she got older she learned the French horn and took singing lessons. She was a very talented musician.

7. When Gail and I were doing dishes (I washed; she dried), that's when we got into the most trouble. We started throwing water or making a lot of noise. Doing dishes sometimes resulted in spankings. Gail usually got the worst end of the deal because I stood in a gap next to fridge and Gail was right out where Mom could get her more easily.

8. One year when we went to Bible camp, we both got to worrying and crying about whether we were really saved or not. I think we got it settled, at least temporarily.

9. Gail always had more and better friends than I did. She was my main friend most of the time.

10. When we were grown and married, at one point Gary and I were having some pretty serious money problems and didn't have much money for anything. She made sure to get me things I needed.

11. When our children were born, she thought of my children as being partly hers and I thought of her baby as being partly mine. As the kids grew up, we didn't feel as strongly about that.

12. When my parents died, Gail and I and our sister-in-law went through the folks' things. Having Gail there made the job easy.

13. Gail was my best friend and a wonderful Christian person. I loved to spend time with her.