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Her Story
Welcome to P.A.I.G.E.!
We’d like to tell you a story…
Once upon a time, there was a sweet, silly, darling little girl named Paige Sandra Murie Suter. She was pretty, but still young enough not to realize it. She liked to play dress up and put on makeup, but then she’d go outside and catch a snake in her high heels. She loved her girlfriends, but she’d get right in the middle of whatever game the boys were playing. She acted lazy, but loved to play basketball, volleyball and speed skate. Paige was smart-she got straight As, but she was as naïve and innocent as any ten year old should be.
Paige had a family that loved her very much. She had a mom and a dad, a big brother, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Oh, and she had a great big teddy-bear of a dog that loved her tons!
And Paige loved her family more than anything. Every story she wrote at school was about how much she loved them. Her diary was filled with love notes to them, and her sharing time at school was always centered on something fun she had done with her family.
Paige had a very deep sense of right and wrong. If she felt someone had been done an injustice, it broke her heart. She once cried because she thought she might have hurt her friend’s feelings. If someone was sitting by themselves, Paige went to that person to make them feel welcome and comfortable. She even tried to put every penny she’d ever saved into her Lenten offering box (Mommy and Daddy made her keep some of it)!
Paige was also very spiritual. Not that she understood that term, she just knew that God was always with her and always would be. Paige put her unshakable, unwavering faith in God. There was absolutely no doubt within her that she was a child of God and that someday, when her work was done on Earth, Jesus would come to take her Home.
And that is exactly what happened on Wednesday, September 20, 2006, when she came home from her first night of speed skating for the season. Paige had a very sudden, very unexpected, very massive brain aneurysm. Paige hung on until the next day, so her family would have time to say goodbye to her -- so mommy could hold her just a little longer, so daddy could kiss her forehead just one more time, and so her brother could hold her hand for the last time. There was time for one more, “group hug”, the last her family would ever have without an empty space in the circle and in their hearts. On Thursday, September 21, 2006 Paige gave up her body and returned Home to await her family’s reunion. She knows we will have more group hugs, and she waits patiently for us to do our work here on Earth so we can begin to re-join the links of our family chain.
We can’t understand how Paige’s work here could have been finished so soon, but maybe she was here as a teacher, not a learner. She taught us to love everyone, to enjoy every moment we are given and to cherish our family.
P.A.I.G.E (Precious Angel In God’s Embrace) is our way of carrying on Paige’s work of love and giving, and putting our faith in God. Each year we will choose one charity, hospital or research organization that helps children in need in the St. Louis, Missouri area. We will then conduct fundraising events to financially help this organization to continue its work.
We hope you are moved by our story to help others, whether it’s through P.A.I.G.E., another charity, or just helping someone who’s struggling with a package at the post office. The gifts of healing and peace are there for us all, and we come to them quickest by deciding to be better, not bitter.
Focus on your blessings, not your losses. May God bless you.
John, Nora and Tyler Suter &
All of Paige’s family and friends