It was April 14, and it was the party of Kelly Fiber’s life.
Nevermind that her birthday was two days before and that it wasn’t a traditional milestone birthday, but this was a year that friends and family quietly wondered if Ms. Fiber would live to see.
“The day before the party she went into hospice,” said her sister Stephanie Fiber-Sutton, of Alpharetta. “And the day of the party, we just didn’t know if she was going to make it.”
But one hour before the party, Ms. Fiber woke up, was alert and ready to receive her guests. And receive them she did, her sister said. Known as a social butterfly, Ms. Fiber hugged, kissed and chatted up her guests, with a cocktail in hand, just like she did when she was a bartender at Marlow’s Tavern in Alpharetta. Nearly 100 friends and family members packed into Embracing Hospice' s Cumming location and celebrated the first 32 years, and the last days, of Ms. Fiber’s life that day.
Tuesday, three days later, Kelly Marie Fiber, of Alpharetta, died from complications brought on by cervical cancer.
A funeral service is planned for 1 p.m. Saturday at Roswell Funeral Home, which is also in charge of arrangements.
Ms. Fiber moved to Atlanta seven years ago from Medina, Ohio, where she spent most of her youth. She needed a change of scenery, said her fiancé Eddie “Shane” Freeman.
“Things weren’t working out well for us in Ohio, and she had relatives down here,” he said. “She came down, and then about six months later, I came down. We got engaged last year, and were supposed to get married at the end of this year, but then she got sick so we just kinda waited to see what was going to happen.”
Ms. Fiber didn’t put off living her life, though. She continued to work at Marlow’s as long as she could. She’d been there for six years and it was more like going to see family than it was going to work.
“When she was around, people were nicer and it was a happier place, so we loved to see her,” said Stephen Nahay, general manager of the Alpharetta location. “I remember when I first started working there, I asked somebody if she was always so nice, and they said she was always like that.”
Ms. Fiber’s bubbly personality and positive attitude also caught the eye of upper management, too, Mr. Nahay said.
“Our owners would come around and talk about what we want to do, and how we want to create a welcoming environment,” he said. “And they’d specifically say that nobody did Marlow’s like Kelly did, because she was just perfection. She could make a first-time guest feel like they’d been there 100 times and she knew the names of the people who came in three or four times a week.”
Ms. Fiber’s perpetually sunny disposition and optimistic outlook brought joy to everyone she was around, friends and family said.
“It always felt like Kelly wanted other people to be happy,” Mr. Nahay said. “It was never about her, she wanted to put a smile on your face.”
Ms. Fiber is also survived by her parents, Gregory and Michele Fiber of Loudon, Tenn.; and maternal grandmother Josephine Florio of Fremont, Ohio.
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