Christine Anne Abeyta

Christine Anne Abeyta
February 10, 1960 - November 13, 2022

Christine was born in Denver Colorado to Max Abeyta, Jr., and Elsie (nee Tafoya) Abeyta.

Christine's early life was marked by adversity. She was the middle child and the only daughter. Hers was not a happy home; both parents inflicted domestic violence upon their children as well as upon one another. Additionally, as a person of Mexican American and Navajo Indian heritage she was one of the only non-white students in her grades school and junior high school, and she was often singled out for abuse by her classmates. She graduated from Wheat Ridge High School (Wheat Ridge, CO) in 1978.

Christine met her high school sweetheart, Miranda, at the beginning of her senior year of high school. Following their graduation they married and enlisted together in the US Army. Christine was proud of her military service: to the US Army (1978-79), Wisconsin National Guard (1988-89) and New York National Guard (1989-90). She was the first in her immediate and extended family to serve in the military. Later, as a civilian employee of the US Coast Guard, she and her contracting and procurement team brought the premier 47-foot Motor Lifeboat into service in the mid-1990s.

Christine was also the first in her family to earn a college degree, receiving an Associate of Arts degree and an Associate of Applied Science degree.

Christine was an exceptionally creative lifelong artist who worked in various mediums. Her work in textile arts included quilting and crocheting. She also worked her entire life with all manner of paints, sketches, and drawings. Later in her life she experimented with the painting technique known as "acrylic pour" to great creative effect.

For most of her life Christine was intensely private about her art, and seldom permitted anyone else to see her work. In later years, though, she became more comfortable sharing her creativity with others, and even had people offering to buy her work. Although she sold some of her work, more often than not she was happy just to make a gift of a piece that was particularly admired.

Christine's love language was the language of giving, and she was always happy to give of herself to her loved ones and friends and strangers alike. Christine was also unfailingly kind and caring. Even at the very end of her life she was more concerned for how her loved ones would fare after she was gone than she was for her own safety and comfort.

Christine refused to let cancer get her down. Her commitment to health and fitness helped her defy it for 11 years. Always an avid runner, she even ran a 5K race over challenging terrain just five months after her first major cancer surgery, while still undergoing chemotherapy.

A good example of Christine's approach to cancer - and, indeed, toward all adversity, can be seen in a bookmark that was discovered among her belongings after she passed. She had made it sometime in the past year or so. On it she had written a quote from Jane Marczewski, a 30-y/o contestant on America's Got Talent, who performed while having metastatic breast cancer and only a 2% chance of survival: "You can't wait until life isn't hard anymore before you decide to be happy."

That sums up Christine's approach to life. Despite having had far more than her fair share of adversity during her lifetime, Christine invariably chose to be happy, and to enrich the lives of those around her.

Christine is survived by her wife (and long-ago high school sweetheart), Miranda Bernabei, her brother Dave Abeyta, and old and new friends from across the U.S. and beyond.