Kelly Wayne Miller

                 January 15, 1954 ~ March 2, 2014


Kelly is my church dad.  He was the ward mission leader for our ward when I joined the church.  He and his wife Marlene, quickly became my church parents.  Mainly because they are awesome, but also because they magnified their callings and took me under their wings.
Since none of my family are members of the church I have always turned to Kelly and Marlene with gospel questions and things about the church that I have wondered about.
Kelly was wonderful about including our small family with theirs.  I can remember the countless numbers of dinners eaten around their table.  The birthdays celebrated together.  The FHE's spent together when my handsome Marine was overseas.  The number of Sunday School classes that they helped with baby Shelbylyn so that I could learn of the gospel, instead of feeling frustrated and going home early.


On March 8th, Kelly and Marlene would have been celebrating their 24th wedding anniversary.  They have a yours and mine, blended family plus the Slattery's.  Marlene has just one biological son, Bryan who lives in Brazil with his wife Jessy and their brand new baby daughter who was born February 28th.  Kelly has 6 children, Jacob, Gina, Steve, Caleb, Holly and Jeremiah.  Together with the addition of baby Maya, they have 19 grandchildren.

On July 11, 1997 at their request I drove to Yuma, AZ to pick up Holly who had stayed to attend Girls Camp.  Steve, Caleb, Holly and Jeremiah usually spent all summer and most of the holidays in Fallbrook with Kelly and Marlene.  Holly and I returned to Fallbrook late in the afternoon.  When I arrived home, Dan was still not home and we were supposed to be leaving for Wyoming for vacation.  I called Marlene and asked if he had left any messages with her, as these were the days before we had cell phones.  I soon received the phone call that Dan had been in a horrible accident and had been life flighted off Camp Pendleton, to the trauma center in Mission Veijo.  When I arrived at the hospital I found my husband on life support.  I was 22 years old, had an 18 month old little girl and thought I was soon going to be a widow.   I remember many things from that time.  One is our Bishop telling me to remember that this life is just a blink of any eye, and after hearing this have made the decision that should Dan go before me I will probably not remarry.  The second thing I remember very vividly is Kelly telling me, it's going to be ok, if he dies then "he made it".  And he went on to tell me that we were living a faithful life, had been sealed, were fulfilling our callings, and that if Dan died right now, he would surely make it to the Celestial kingdom.  So I also remember being kind of angry that Kelly was having this talk with me.  I didn't want to hear these things!  As everyone knows, Dan was/is a fighter and was able to recover from his injuries, or as I know it to be, it just wasn't his time to return.

Kelly has been in failing health for about 3 years now.  His liver started forming fissures and then blockages would occur and then his liver began to not work properly.  They tried many avenues of care, even several holistic options.  None of which ultimately were successful.  Kelly was on the liver transplant list for the last 7 months.  Kelly spent the last 6 weeks of his life in UCSD Medical Center in San Diego.  He needed a liver transplant, badly, like last month!  He began suffering from seizures due to low sodium levels that the medical staff was never really able stabilize.  He also suffered from a diminished mental state due to the level of ammonia in his system from the toxins released from his liver.  The medical staff also struggled to stabilize this as well.   Several of the boys met with the transplant team and for one reason or another were all eliminated as possible live donors.  The transplant team had told Marlene that Kelly would not survive long enough to receive a liver in San Diego County due to the demand, and had begun the process of moving his care to another facility somewhere else in the United States, where his chances of receiving a liver were higher.  That transfer would not happen.  At 1:08 a.m. on March 2, 2014, Kelly returned to our Heavenly Father.  Of course it was a complication of his liver failure that ultimately ended his mortal life here.  Something similar to an aneurysm occurred in his esophagus and the medical staff was unable to bring him back, perhaps a tender mercy.



Kelly and Marlene traveled to Wyoming for each of the girls' baptisms.  After Shelbylyn's which of course was in December, Marlene promised to never visit in the winter again, after multiple flights were cancelled out of the Casper airport, a long white knuckled drive to Denver International Airport, only to arrive home 2 days later, when it would have been faster to just drive straight home to California.  Better grandparents couldn't have been asked for.

So now I ache with the loss of this great man.  Never I have met a member of the church who was more service minded, gospel oriented and loving.  I know that "he made it!"

We will be traveling to Fallbrook on Friday to spend the weekend with the Miller family to celebrate Kelly's life.  It will be wonderful to see everyone, and sad all in the same breath.  I would not be the person I am today if I had never met Kelly.  I feel especially lucky to have Kelly as a angel in Heaven now to watch over me.  I know he will be put to work quickly doing missionary work, as he loved to share the Gospel with everyone.