“From Mindi, With Love — A Tribute to Aunt Karen”
I used to sit by the record player in Dad’s music room, tracing my fingers over the cover of Now & Then. I didn’t fully understand who she was back then — not really. I just knew that whenever her voice came through the speakers, the house got quieter. Even the air seemed to pause.
She was “Aunt Karen” to me. Not the legend. Not the icon. Just the woman in the family photo albums with the soft smile, the straight-cut bangs, and the eyes that looked like they knew more than they ever said.
Growing up as Richard Carpenter’s daughter came with its own set of shadows and lights. Music was in everything — the walls, the furniture, even the silence. But Aunt Karen’s presence, though absent physically, was constant. She was there in the piano chords my dad played without thinking. She was in the way he would stop, just for a second, whenever “Rainy Days and Mondays” came on. She was in the stories whispered between relatives at Thanksgiving, the way Grandma still folded napkins like she used to.
I didn’t inherit her voice. No one could. But I think I inherited her yearning — that gentle ache you hear in her phrasing, that longing for something purer, simpler, softer than the world often gives. When I first started singing, I avoided her songs out of respect. How do you touch something so sacred without breaking it?
But eventually, I realized… she’d want me to. Not to copy her, not to chase her shadow, but to carry it forward in my own way.
So now, every once in a while — just for me, or sometimes on stage — I’ll sing “Superstar” or “I Need to Be in Love.” I don’t try to sound like her. I just close my eyes and let her memory guide me. And in those moments, it’s like she’s in the room again. Not on a pedestal, but sitting beside me. Smiling. Listening. Maybe even humming along.
People always ask me what it’s like to be related to Karen Carpenter. I never quite know how to answer. It’s like being given a candle lit from someone else’s flame — you don’t own it, but you carry it carefully. You try to protect it from the wind.
Aunt Karen was fragile in ways the world didn’t deserve. But she was also fierce in her honesty, her artistry, her ability to make millions feel like she was singing just to them.
I hope, in some small way, I honor that.
And if she’s listening — from wherever she is — I hope she knows:
She’s still the music in this family.
Still the voice in our silence.
And still, forever, my aunt.
— Mindi Carpenter