In Memorium
It is with a heavy heart that I write to inform
those of you who do not already know, that my sister,
Joan entered into rest on Tuesday, September 17, 2002
at seven o'clock in the morning.
Joan's early death is attributed to breast cancer,
however, she did not "lose" the fight. Rather, her
valiant, courageous daily stand against the
insipient disease, her willingness to risk many different
treatments, and the years she added to her life
through her positive attitude, resulted in Joan
being the true Champion.
After graduating from Valley Central High School
in 1975, Joan attended Wagner College where she
obtained a B.S.N., RN. Joan worked as a nurse in New York Hospital in Manhattan for one
year before marrying
Ralph Thomas Knechel (Hac), and moving to
Hackettstown, New Jersey. There she continued her career in nursing at Hackettstown
Community Hospital working
devotedly in the emergency room, then the recovery room and finally quality care
management/utilization review.
Though first diagnosed with breast cancer in 1992,
Joan was not forced to stop working until late in
1996. Even then, she still remained active as a
volunteer in many community based organizations;
one in which she helped handicapped children ride
horses and another in which she helped transport other
cancer patients to treatment.
A true lover of the outdoors, Joan and her husband
traveled throughout the USA and many foreign
countries before and after her illness. Nothing stopped
Joan. Even on her sickest days, she persevered with
undaunted determination and grace. If anyone loved
life and lived it to its highest potential, Joan did.
The memories and stories, laughter and tears are too
great to attempt to summarize.
In the end, Joan even met her impending death with
magnificent courage and dignity. Ironically, a
seemingly never-ending 10½ year saga, ended quite
quickly and peacefully. It's hard to pinpoint when
the end came into sight, but it was easy to see that Joan
never gave up. As recently as mid-July, in spite of
hourly physical struggle and turmoil, she golfed 18
holes in the Dr. John A. Lukacs Memorial Golf
Tournament, and took home the prize for longest drive!
Of course, she loved sports, and people too, and it
seems like it wasn't really that long ago that she
was leading the VC women's basketball team to victory
and being crowned Homecoming Queen..
We'll all miss her.
She requested we play the song "It's a Wonderful
World", by Louis Armstrong at her funeral. There
wasn't a dry eye in the house, yet there is still
a smile in my heart. For Joan, even in the hour of
her death truly loved life and wholeheartedly believed
it is a wonderful world.
(This Memorial was sent to us by Ann Lukacs.The
class of 1976 wishes to express our sincere condolences to Ann and the entire Lukacs
family. Our thoughts and prayers are with you.)
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