Gabriele "Gaby" Forster

Gabriele I. Forster, aged 72, passed away on April 4th, 2025. She was born on December 22, 1952, to Emma Martha Lang Forster and Ludwig Heinrich Forster in Schwandorf, Germany. She has two surviving siblings, a brother, Klaus Forster, and beloved sister, Heidrun Holher, both living in Germany.

Gabriele was a beloved friend to many. She moved to the United States and resided in Roswell, Georgia for over 30 years. She had a very successful career as a Real Estate Agent and won several awards for her accomplishments. She had a wonderful group of girlfriends over the years as well as many dear friends both here and in Germany. This was her family, and she enjoyed vacationing and going on travel adventures with her friends. Her German sense of humor was her trademark. She loved cooking and throwing dinner parties for her friends. She loved her garden, her pool, and tending to her flowers. We will miss the little crinkle in her nose every time she broke out with a laugh!

Throughout her life, Gabriele achieved many accomplishments. She had over 25 years in Real Estate with Harry Norman Realtors, and later, Crye Leike Realtors. She loved music, and wine festivals, and playing card games with friends. She truly enjoyed life to the fullest.

She will be deeply missed by all her friends and family that had the pleasure of knowing her.

A celebration of Life service will be held on April 24th at 11:00am at Roswell Funeral Home to celebrate Gabriele’s life and honor her contributions to our world and share all the wonderful memories. Following the service there will be a reception with light refreshments.

She touched so many lives, and her memory will live in our hearts forever.

We who today are celebrating the life of our sister Gabriele Forster do well to remember when this celebration began. The moment Gabriele, newborn, opened her eyes for the first time, and found her gaze returned by a pair of eyes not her own, the mother who brought her into the world, looking at her amazed and inexpressibly grateful for her existence – so began today’s memorial service. That first meeting of eyes and the mutual recognition that a human life is a miracle of God’s love manifest in the world, here is the deepest meaning of the life of our sister Gabriele. Today, we who knew the woman and experienced the miracle of her life unfolding over the course of many years, are confronted with the reality that Gabriele’s life on earth has ended. Each of us must process in our own way, the truth that her passing is not imagined, but real. In the face of this reality, we who cherished her life, need to venture some account of the meaning of her death. Arriving at this moment, we would be inconsolable were it not for the truth that Jesus’ resurrection from the grave has transformed the meaning of her life and death. Gabriele was a Catholic. Today, I invite each of you to bear in mind that, the water she was placed in at her baptism, was a sacramental participation in Christ’s own death whereby our sister was made a member of His body. This body has been raised, and will never die. That is ultimately what we are called to remember at this memorial service: not merely a woman’s earthly sojourn, which is now over, but Christ’s resplendent victory over death by which Gabriele’s death is revealed to be a passage from death to life. These words I am sharing with you, I firmly believe, are Gabriele’s own last words and testament, entrusted to me, and which she wished me to share with you. Some of you have already met her in your dreams, more alive than you’ve seen her for years, smiling and dancing. This is what I hear her saying as she dances: “He kept His promise! Everything you’ve heard about Him, it’s all true! He, who is risen, is lifting me up, even now, to the glory which is His at the right hand of the Father! With all His heart, my Bridegroom wants me to be with Him. With all my heart, I want to be with Him. He has told me, he wants you to come with me, and I want you to be with me, that we might never be separated again, but enjoy intimate friendship with one another and with Him for all eternity.” Here, then, is the blessing I offer at Gabriele’s memorial service: her blessing and words of love entrusted to me. May Christ’s desire for all of us be fulfilled and may our friendship be eternal as heaven itself, for the praise and glory of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, God forever and ever. Amen.