Greetings, dear family and friends,

As our family lives through the devastating news of Anastasia's passing, we want to share our heartfelt gratitude for the tremendous outpouring of love and effort over the past week to find her. You are all utterly amazing. You all carried her in your hearts through this journey. Many, especially teammates and trained K9s on my Larimer County Search and Rescue team, dropped everything - some for many days and nights - to help find our beloved daughter and sister. The ground effort was remarkable. Truly, thank you.

Life can be awful. Anastasia in many ways lived and knew awful - from the moment she was born, some may say earlier. And yet she lived with remarkable strength, and persistence, and a stunning grace. She showed deep love and compassion, none more than for others who struggled, especially children, who she championed. And animals. She understood. She achieved extraordinary things, most recently college graduation magna cum laude, through sheer determination, a will of steel, many sparks of chutzpah, and in spite of challenges that humble those of us living without such high barriers. We are so very proud of her. Our, and many, lives have been enriched and blessed by her. Many of you knew her tenacious spirit! Recently, she was playing subject for a drone team training, and was radio'd to make herself more visible. She laughed, still under bushes deep in a field, and waved her middle finger at them!! That's our girl!!!

And yet, Anastasia's well of pain was overflowing. She knew it. She tried so hard to contain it and release it. She knew she needed to go Home. One of her beloved three brothers said yesterday, "As unbelievable and impossibly painful as this is for us now, and to carry forward all our days, it is worth every single day we got to have her with us." WE will now continue to carry her pain, in a new way. That of grief. A small measure of that deep love we each have, and will always have, for her.

She is indelibly a beautiful, shining part of each of us. We carry that grief with divine thanksgiving. No time for regret. She was always on her journey, as we each are. Her journey was and is perfect, as hard as that concept may be to grasp, from before time to time eternal.

I share the opening words of Anastasia's adoption announcement, as true now as the day we learned she was being entrusted to us from her orphanage in Russia: "You came to this world through a field of stars. And the joy you bring is brighter than the sun, and deeper than the stars." We now hand her, not by choice but only in deep faith, back to the great God who made her so perfectly; and welcomes her home in Love; and assuages all pain; and returns her to wholeness and His perfect peace that passes all understanding. We know she is in good hands. We will be ok.

With love,

Lupton and Diane

Patten, Wilson and Cartter

and Charlie, her beloved service dog, who was always with and beside her for the past 5 years•

'There are two types of tired: one that requires rest, and the other that requires peace" - Unknown