Candace McCulley

Candace's viewing and funeral were quite lovely, and I think she looks very beautiful in the attire she is wearing. I very much loved hearing her family sing Amazing Grace in Cherokee on Sunday. I haven't heard it sung in Cherokee since I was a teenager since I loved learning the Cherokee language as a kid, having gone to language classes then. I was very pleased to hear it again and witness it in person as an adult. I even studied it very early in undergraduate school. I am happy my sister Shelby was able to make it there to the funeral yesterday.
     Everytime I think of Candace, I think of her when I first met her in the Fall of 2008 at the Nazarene Church in Youth Group at the age of sixteen. Chelsea Peary invited me to go to church with her and I continued going for a while after that first time. So, when I remember Candace, I remember her as a younger kid before she was a teenager, and I remember seeing her with her siblings and others there at that church. I always remembered her as being very sweet and I enjoyed being around her even then. I very much agreed with the pastor at the funeral when he said she had a nice smile. I always thought she had a very cute smile. I was absolutely delighted to see her again years later as she popped up one day having just started working at Taco Bueno and we got to work with each other before for a little while before I left in 2014. With my time with her there, I always thought she was a very good worker and I really appreciated her help and contribution when things got busy and hectic there. Which was often, unfortunately. I remember driving her home from work one day because she had to be home at a certain time, and we connected over the Cherokee culture and the Cherokee language, which she told me then that her family called her Candy Eater growing up. She asked me on that drive how to say it in Cherokee. She then gave a house tour when I dropped her off. Lol I very much loved that she embraced her heritage and enjoyed seeing her Tiktoks of her and kids singing in Cherokee over time.
     I enjoyed being there during moments such as her wedding and baby showers outside of church, and I am really glad I was able to see her one last time at that very same Nazarene church fifteen years later. That's so crazy to me thinking about it. There was no way I wasn't going to see her one last time. I have always cared for her and the other kids that I attended Youth Group with, and the adults there. I am always delighted to see any of them at any point. I loved catching up with Brittany Book at the viewing Sunday and I am very thankful that Chelsea introduced me to the church and the people all those years ago. I am very appreciative that I got to cross paths with Candace when I did and that we got to be friends in this life time. And, of course, I got to see Ciera again after a while since we last saw each other.
     My family and I are heartbroken over her passing.