MELISSA "MISSY" BAKER

There was once a woman named Missy, whose love came so naturally it never needed to be explained. You felt it in her presence. You felt it in her laughter. You felt it every single time she looked at the people she loved.

To say she was a dear friend would be too simple. She was the kind of person you built a lifetime around. The kind who held space for your grief and celebrated your joy like it was her own. Her love was constant, the kind that didn't fade when things got hard. Her closest friend said it plainly: “Our love for each other was unwavering.” And it was. She didn’t just say “I love you.” She meant it. Every time.

They went on a trip once. Just one of many moments now folded into memory, but that one stands out. Not because it was the most grand, but because it was the kind of day that made you forget everything else. The kind where the world slowed down, and her laugh made the air feel lighter. Still, when asked to choose just one memory, it wasn’t possible. “Too many moments to narrow down to one,” her friend said. “I miss her terribly.”

And that’s the thing about Missy. She gave people so much to hold on to, it’s hard to pick just one piece. She wasn’t a highlight reel. She was the whole story.

Her story is stitched into the hearts of her children and grandchildren. She would want them to remember her love most of all. That is what mattered to her. Not the noise of the world. Not the pain she carried. Just love. That’s what she gave them. That’s what she left behind.

Two years before she passed, her dear friend Jason Stone died. Same cause. Same silence. The loss of him never really left her circle. And now, losing her has left another place in the world that feels hollow. “Her love and my good friend Jason passed two years prior to her. The same thing. I’ll never get over her being gone.”

You don’t. Not really. Not when someone like Missy was part of your life. You carry them forward. In the sound of a familiar laugh. In the comfort of a phrase you’ve heard a hundred times. In the ache that rises unexpectedly, when you realize you can’t call just to hear her voice.

But love like that doesn’t disappear. It lingers in the quiet moments. It speaks in dreams. It waits in stories. It shows up in the hearts of the ones she loved most.

Missy didn’t leave this world quietly. Her love is still loud. Her memory is still warm.Text