Carol Rae (Taylor) Merschel was born Feb. 26, 1938 in Anaconda, Mont. She was the daughter of Fred and Frances Taylor. She graduated from Western Montana College and then Brigham Young University, where she earned her bachelor’s degree. She followed a sister to California and was working as a teacher when she met Richard Merschel, whom she married on June 25, 1964. Son Michael was born in 1966; daughter Nicole in 1970; and son Steve in 1976. As she raised her family, she also worked to provide daycare to many children in her Green Mountain neighborhood, and later she worked as a teacher’s aide at Green Mountain High School. She was active in her ward at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, where, over the years, she served as a visiting teacher, taught primary and Sunday school, taught in Relief Society and was a visiting teacher supervisor. On Oct. 31, she was dining with friends when she suffered what was eventually diagnosed as a brain aneurysm. She spent the ensuing weeks making progress toward recovery but suffered complications that led to cardiac arrest. She died on Dec. 18, 2018. She was preceded in death by her parents and sisters Shirley Jean, Charline and Joan. She is survived by her brother, Fred, of Redding, Calif.; husband, Richard, of Lakewood; son Michael (and his wife, Melinda), of Richardson, Texas; daughter Nicole of Highlands Ranch, Colo.; son Steve of Louisville, Colo.; and grandchildren Krista, Gabriella and Jacob Merschel of Richardson and Amanda and Brianna Rist of Highlands Ranch. Those are some facts. Let’s talk about the feelings. Carol was a bundle of love, laughs and opinions. She was not shy about sharing any of that. Which is how she brought a lot of joy into the world. She loved to laugh. She did so often, and with vigor. Her cousin Gary Browning recalls “staying up late and getting the giggles so bad and so loud that Richard would crawl out of bed and come out to see what the heck was going on, which made us laugh even louder.” There are stories of a laughing fit with her sister, Joan, that caused Carol to walk out of a stage play. Stories of the two of them laughing so hard after Joan complained about smoke in a movie theater -- it was actually just characters smoking on-screen -- that they were forced to leave. “No laughter like when Carol, Joan and I got together,” Gary says. “We could laugh at a bar of soap for no reason.” She particularly loved to laugh at herself. Perhaps the more awkward the situation, the harder she laughed. Her best laughs were punctuated with her family’s trademark, “Kid! Kid! Kid! Oh, kid!” Mike remembers her coming home from bowling once in the 1970s and describing how her finger had gotten stuck in the ball, which led to her flying halfway down the alley. (She laughed as she told the story.) Gary was with her when she fell while getting off the ski lift at Winter Park. (“Snow up her nose, under her glasses and everywhere else. We laughed about this for years.”) She loved her kids. A lot. She came from a line of strict, fiery-tempered women but her own life was marked by a desire to give generously of herself. She opened her home repeatedly to family members who needed a place to stay during transitions in their lives. She would stay up until dawn counseling someone. Her friend Beverly Pratt recalls that at church, she was always one of the first to sign up when someone needed help and that “she was always so good with sending cards with nice messages on their birthdays.” She embraced her children’s friends and made her home a safe space for whatever they were interested in doing. She became famous on college campuses in multiple states as the mom or grandma who sent amazing care packages, filled with candy, encouraging notes and silly, frilly toys (probably ordered in bulk from Miles Kimball or another one of her favorite catalogs), plus some spending cash, probably folded or rolled or hidden in some creative way. “She must have baked a truckload of cookies for Steve and his college roomies,” Pratt says. She loved her kids. And her grandkids. A lot. She loved surprises. Newcomers to the family had to be warned — that birthday cake you are cutting into might have a coin inserted into it. And that innocent-looking box of Milk Duds that you found under the Christmas tree? Before you toss it aside, maybe you should note that it had been carefully cut open and then resealed so that a gift could be slipped inside. She was a person of opinions. Some would say she usually saw two ways to approach any issue: her way, and the wrong way. She was not shy about letting you know her feelings about car colors (black would always show dirt, as would white, and there were too many silver cars), banana prices (usually better at the last store she was at) or the wait at the restaurant you were dining at (it was probably asinine.) She was transparent about her worries. She loved the mountains but hated driving high passes; as a girl in Montana, she would curl up on the floor of the car on the worst parts. As an adult, she would bark orders at RICHARD! to pay attention. If you were a young driver, she would signal her confidence in you by grasping the strap above the passenger door with both hands and closing her eyes as you made your left turn. She was demanding, and when you were letting her down, she let you know. But the critical shell surrounded a sensitive soul. “We all know how strong-willed she was, and we butted heads a lot,” says her sister-in-law Sylvia Merschel. But “when it came to the basics, Carol and I were on the same page. We strongly believed in contributing positively to the world around us, and her generosity and kindness are legendary. She had unending convictions of her beliefs; in others, in her family, the people she loved, her students, and her faith.” She was a person of passion. Particularly for sports. The Broncos, of course, but she also watched a lot of bowling back in the day. Also a lot of figure skating. And a lot of Kansas Jayhawks basketball. (Of note: She once was at a hotel on vacation and got in line and told a man next to her in a buffet line, “You look a lot like Peter Forsberg of the Colorado Avalanche.” She proceeded to tell this stranger how she was from Denver, and how Forsberg was her favorite player, and how good he was, and how much she enjoyed watching him play. Eventually, she looked around the room and realized it was full of Avalanche players. She looked back at the man she had been lecturing. “You are Peter Forsberg!” And Forsberg -- 6-0, 205 pounds, future hall-of-famer -- shrugged sheepishly, embarrassed at the onslaught of attention. She laughed at that.) She also could tune into a contest between two teams she barely knew, perhaps in a sport she did not quite have an understanding of, and start pulling for one side over the other as if she’d been a lifelong fan. A sign of what her heart was made of: No matter how passionately she yelled, at the end of the game, when the cameras were panning the losing bench, she would point out that she felt sorry for the losing players. Even if they were Oakland Raiders, Missouri Tigers or Soviet ice dancers. She did like to win, though not as much as seeing her grandchildren win. They remember the glee that would accompany a good roll of the dice and the joyous yell of YAHTZEE! Or the long sessions of Bingo, which came with lots of prizes -- and how everybody ended up with a scrupulously equal amount. They also recall the snacks at Grandma’s house: the bottomless M&M dispenser. Little hot dogs with pineapples poked through with a toothpick. Cinnamon toast (with real butter). Her excellent French toast, too. She was passionate about American Idol and other reality TV shows and spent many hours recapping each episode with her sisters and niece and cousin. It was a sin to call her household within 5 minutes of the top of the hour, because that’s when her shows would be reaching a climax. She offered a lot of advice. Her kids did not always relish it. Sometimes that was for the best. And sometimes not. But her kids. She really, really loved her kids. She read us stories. Helped us with math. Counseled us on relationships. Pushed us. Challenged us. Built her life around us. When it came time to choose an email address, she went with “mnsmom.” Because that’s who she was. Mike, Nicole and Steve’s mom. Each felt her pride, and her love, every day of our lives. Others saw it, too. One teacher remembered her as one of those parents who loved their kids unconditionally, provided structures, supported teachers, came to conferences, laughed largely and cried openly because their kid was learning and growing. She loved showing her affection through gifts. If this had been a normal year, about the time she fell ill she would have been sending around a note saying, “We really have to cut back on Christmas this year.” She would have protested that she was too tired to do anything. And then, a few weeks later, there would have been instructions on what she wanted parents to do for the grandkids. And then, on Christmas, there would have been a wave of goodies. Maybe hidden in a surgically altered box of Milk Duds. It’s telling, that as she spent the past few weeks popping in and out of alertness, that on one of her best days, she was expressing concern about gift-giving. It’s also telling, that at a time when she could not speak and nobody was certain as to how much of Mom was really there after the stroke, she was able to draw a picture of a heart, with a smile in the middle. And we knew -- Mom was there. It’s also telling that as she was fading away, the staff heard her giving instructions to Richard. She knew he would hear. He was at her side every possible moment, asking every possible question, never giving up hope until the final moment. He was there, when she died, looking for something to place in her hands, so she would feel at ease. She attracted such devotion and love, and she radiated it. Her life on this earth is over. That love -- and the laughter, and all of the joy she brought to so many of us, will radiate on and on and on. A memorial service will be held at 10 a.m. Friday, Dec. 28, at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints,13206 W. Green Mountain Dr., Lakewood. Burial at Golden Cemetery will follow. In lieu of flowers, contributions to World Vision’s Farm Animals for Families program (https://bit.ly/carolvision) or the American Diabetes Association (https://donations.diabetes.org/)are encouraged.