Bidding Farewell to the Briar Philosopher

This past week we lost a gift and a treasure. Jackson County Sun General Manager/Co-Editor and award-winning Kentucky Press Association columnist Carmen Leah Abner passed away unexpectedly on May 09, 2026. Carmen had recently been diagnosed with a serious medical condition and her passing was unexpected and far too soon.

Carmen wrote “The Briar Philosopher”, an award-winning column that many readers diligently followed. Many reported to us that reading her column was the main reason they bought the paper and the first thing they read when they got the newest issue. In her column, Carmen would write of nature, gardening, growing up in Appalachia, her life on Walker’s Branch Road in Sand Gap, and the interrelationships between people and all living things. However, what permeated every column was a sense of love, empathy, compassion, awe, and her appreciation for life.

Carmen was not just a co-worker; she was also my wife, my true love, my heart, my salvation. We spent the last 15 years being inseparable. Everything we did, we did together. People grew to know me not just as Jerry. To know her not just as Carmen. People knew us as Jerry and Carmen. We went everywhere together. We did everything together. We wrote and produced this newspaper together. We attended public meetings and events together. We played music together in a band called Sparrow Hawks. We performed together at the Berea Arena Theater. Together, we took care of my dependent elderly brother, Tommie. Together, we loved and celebrated our daughter, Sarah, and our grandchildren, Ben and Evie. Together, we planted and nurtured fruit trees and flowers. Together, we laughed. Together, we learned. Together, we cried. Together, we loved. Every single day for the past 15 years, we were together.

During this time, she told me her Briar philosophy many times. Carmen told me that when interacting with a friend, or an enemy, or a total stranger, if you approach that interaction from a position of love, you will never go wrong. She also believed that “love” was a “verb”. In other words, love was manifested through what one did and not simply what one said or even what one thought. She treated every customer who called or walked through the office door this way. She treated every person this way. She treated our animals and plants this way. Whether she was warming and wrapping bricks to take to the dogs on a cold winter’s night or making sure the newly planted trees got a good drink of water when the rains weren’t there, she was coming from a position of love with an action to show it. She would tell me, “All people are my people. All children are my children.” She believed in respecting everybody. She would say, “We are all the same.” She believed the words of John Steinbeck from the “Grapes of Wrath”, “A fellow ain’t got a soul of his own, just a little piece of a big soul, the one big soul that belongs to everybody.” She lived her life this way. She earned the respect, and admiration of many people and pets because she always treated each of them with respect, dignity, and love. “You can never give away more than you will receive,” she would say when making a personal sacrifice to help another.

Outpourings of sorrow from friends in our community upon her passing have been numerous. All are so greatly appreciated. However, Carmen’s influence wasn’t just limited to the Jackson County community she loved. After she passed, I received words of condolences from around the world. Messages came to me from France, Italy, and Norway. Strangers that she had reached out to in moments of need were moved to express their love and grief. For example, Kristin Nybrott from Norway told me that Carmen had reached out after she posted on social media that she had lost her daughter and was having trouble coping. Carmen reached out and wrote her a poem. Kristin told me that the beauty and wisdom contained in Carmen’s poem helped her through the darkest moments of her life. Kristin sent me the poem so I could also find comfort in it since I am now struggling with the loss of Carmen. As we say farewell to this extraordinary human being, there are no better words than those of Carmen herself. Carmen’s poem to Kristin reads as follows:

What comfort is there for us
Now that you have flown?

Save that the gift of you
Once graced our everyday.

That one so young should
Be the fates be called

Leaves us bewildered who
Without you stay.

Oh Daughter, Sister, our own
Spirit’s friend,

We know that every flower
Has its fall,

And must be grateful fate’s
Ungentle wind

Let us hold you briefly
Instead of not at all

Carmen Abner

I am a better man, and the world is a much better place for Carmen’s presence. But at the moment, my world is shattered, and my heart is broken. I believe love and grief are directly proportional to one another. The more you love someone, the more you grieve their loss. Our love was the greatest thing I have ever experienced. We shared a love so pure that we both considered ourselves to be the luckiest people who ever lived. Most never get to experience such a life-filling experience. Against all odds, we were the big door prize for one another. Needless to say, my grief is proportionately profound. I have never experienced anything this difficult.

May she live on in the love we express for nature, animals, plants, soil, water and rocks. For family, for friends, for enemies, for community, for strangers, and for life.

There will be a Celebration of Carmen’s Life in the near future. Once final arrangements are made, it will be advertised. If you wish to honor her memory, in lieu of flowers, I suggest donating to the Arbor Day Foundation with their “Plant Trees in Memory” program (arborday.org). They will use the donation and plant trees in her memory. They will plant 10 trees for $20. Carmen always said she was the Lorax and spoke for the trees. A donation that planted trees would make her happy.
Other recommended options include donations to the Jackson County Cancer Fund or a local food bank. Always come from a position of love.

One of Carmen’s Briar Philosopher columns was entitled, “Laying the Garden By”. In it, she reflects on her mother's passing. Now it is time to reflect upon the passing of Carmen. I could never express myself as well as she, so I include her thoughts on the passing of a loved one. She touched the lives of many, and she will be missed by many.

Laying the Garden by

Many were your rows of days.
The last too hard to hoe.
Many the fields you planted,
And many the seeds you’d sow.

We gather your harvest to us
With a tear, a smile, and a sigh
As we now stand on Autumn land
Laying the garden by.

But, oh the harvest of stories
And the laughter of the day
Before the turning of seasons
Did pluck the Rose of May.

We know that Spring will carry you
To earth and river and sky
And that circles have no endings
We’re just laying the garden by.

Your roots too deep for frost to touch
Still nourish the shoots you bore.
The bounty of your blossoms now
Within our hearts we store.

Your winged seeds have fallen
But to good earth they did fly.
So, a song of beginnings we’re singing
As we lay the garden by.

~Carmen Abner
“Whisper words of wisdom. Let it be.”