Source www.kentucky.com In Memoriam
Scarlett Parsley Hooker
23, London
Our greatest desire as parents was realized in our three happy, healthy, loving daughters.
No parents could have felt more blessed. None could have been more filled with gratitude. And none could have prepared us for the dark emptiness we have felt since our youngest daughter was taken from us in the crash of Comair Flight 5191. We know we are richly blessed to still have two beautiful, loving daughters, their husbands and children. But one full year after the 5191 tragedy, we grieve the child we lost as if it happened yesterday.
On Sept. 14, 1982, Scarlett Catherine Parsley came into this world. On Aug. 27, 2006 she left it, one day after being married to Jon Hooker in a storybook wedding.
In between were 23 years, 11 months, and 18 days. During that time, we had the privilege and honor to call her our daughter. We loved those words. With each child we felt a blessing when saying “our daughter.” In the 24 years we were blessed to have her we saw the evidence of God’s grace upon her life.
Scarlett was delightful. She brought joy to our hearts. She was a beautiful child. From the day we first held her, until we put our arms around her for the last time at her wedding, she was a delight. Her mind was ever quick and active. She graduated valedictorian of her high school class. It was a joy to see her drive to graduate with honors and her excitement about her future as a speech-language pathologist. When she came home she always took the time to just sit and talk.
Scarlett was a wonderful, respectful daughter. She listened and learned in her youth, but through it all there was ever the mark of respect. Many friends at Centre and at UK spoke of her big smile and cheerful attitude, and of her strength of character under pressure. They spoke of her as a role model. Some in the community said she was the ideal daughter.
The UK College of Health Sciences created an annual award in Scarlett’s name. The award reads: “What was most impressive about Scarlett was that she never complained. Never. She was simply always responsible, kind, gracious, quiet, and focused on her goal. …”
She was a loving daughter. Parents want their daughters to be strong, yet gentle and loving. Scarlett was that. Scarlett demonstrated her love for us over and over. She ended all of her goodbyes with “I love you.” She loved us and her sisters dearly. She was our “best friend.”
Time moved all too quickly to that final hug and kiss at the wedding. We will always remember her beauty, her youth, her strength of body and soul and the fervency of her love.
We have spoken of what Scarlett was. But our saddest, deepest grief is over what might have been. We will never share her day-to-day joy in being married to the love of her life, Jon Hooker. We are simply left with the emptiness of knowing what these two wonderful young people could have done together.
We will never know Scarlett’s struggles and triumphs as she finished work on her master’s degree and became a speech-language pathologist. We will never know how our lives and the lives of others would have been touched and changed by Scarlett and by Jon.
So much love, so much goodness, so much caring, so much strength of character, and so much joy were lost on Aug. 27, 2006.
John Greenleaf Whittier wrote: “for all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these, that might have been.”
There will never be a day when our hearts aren’t broken over what might have been. Scarlett and Jon stood with God’s son, Jesus Christ, in those last seconds on Comair Flight 5191. They finished their race with “amazing grace.” We are left to finish ours without them.
The family of Scarlett Parsley Hooker | 
