It is with heavy heart…..isn’t that how so many such postings begin? Well, heavier, still than even that. My sis, a constant while I was growing up, was beautiful! Also, a force of nature few ever tangled with successfully. She was willful, and positive. A role model many would thrive from, if followed.
As children, she was my protector, and seldom did bullies bother me after tangling with my beautiful sis! I was her shadow and she took me with her almost everywhere, partly as a self-protection technique to easily spurn undesirable suitors! Ha! Yes, that was Nan. Those undesired always tried to befriend me, with the purpose of pumping me for information about my beautiful sister. I was onto that.
Her loving husband of 51 years and I pulled together a short obituary, and it’s posted here. We hunted for good pictures of her, and remembered since she studied photography, it was usually her taking the pictures, so those we have are fewer than we thought.
When her health began to fail was first, I believe, a bout of cancer in the area of the throat, and radiation was the treatment of choice. However, that left a constant problem with swallowing, and almost every time she ate, she would have to upchuck some of it. A sorry state of affairs. Top that off with Rheumatoid Arthritis, and many allergies to meds that might have been easier to take than those she was prescribed. A cyst formed on her spine in an bad spot and no one would touch it. Her pain was constant, and unrelenting.
Then a stroke. Fortunately, it left no terrible after effects, and while recovering from that scare, along came COVID. Of course, with her immune system already compromised, she and her husband both got it. His antibody treatment was highly successful, and she wound up in hospital, gravely ill.
After that, she had a series of falls. Once, went to ER unconscious for no apparent reason, which had obviously caused her fall. Heart? She did have AFIB and a pacemaker, and maybe that tied to all her many medications for other various ills caused that, but I don’t know. Not being a doc. But, then, the docs didn’t know either. Her balance was all pretty much gone. Then she had more falls, over and over. God alone knows what caused most of it. They said congestive heart failure near the end. But this all continued for over a two year period, and she fought it, and the constant bleeding from little punctures or scratches from the blood thinners.
Through all of this, her biggest concerns were always for her husband! She never lost her care for others! Big, big heart. Fighting pain and weakness, she worried about others! Suffered through our baby brothers death, and worked at getting his ashes interred properly, a task that took more than a year. She cared. Greatly. For others.
That’s just a testament to her loving heart, and demonstrates her character. She loved her husband, those who worked with her, loved her dog, loved me, and her other family. We had plans to get her well enough to go back to the pool and build strength with water aerobics. And now, that will never happen.
But, she’s got no more pain. She’s at peace. And God has her, along with our intrepid Mom, and brother, Larry. And of us four, I’m the last. And I miss her like crazy. And she will be a tree soon!