She was a very good baby.
Her sister came out upside down and doubled over after many hours of labor. Terri came out exactly as she was supposed to, and in record time. She wasn’t a fussy baby, and other than some generic crying was always peaceful.
She learned to walk and talk early. When she was having fun, she would laugh out loud, starting as an infectious giggle and ending in a squeal of delight. She was always a nurturer; when either I or my wife picked her up and patted her back to console her, she patted our backs as well. She played well with other children, and shared toys. Curious, she would play in the sand box in the middle of our traffic circle, throw the sand in the air and watch where it went. Of course, it came back down; she became accustomed to daily eye washes.
She learned to read early, and developed a vocabulary beyond her years. But she was still a little girl. I was out driving one day when she was about three, and she asked me, “Not many people have herpes, Daddy, do they?” I had the sense to ask her why she asked that. She told me, “One just drove past us.” I looked in the rear-view mirror, and it was a VW Beetle. A Herby.
At the age of five she was ready for kindergarten. We had heard of a teacher at the school she would attend who was famous for instilling a life-long love of learning. We received word that she would be in Mrs. Jackson’s class, the famous teacher, and were delighted. We took her to meet Mrs. Jackson, and they hit it off immediately. On our way home Terri said, “She doesn’t look anything like I thought she would.” Yes, Mrs. Jackson was black, but we had always lived in integrated neighborhoods. I asked her why she said that.
“Well, she’s so short.” I learned more about myself that day than I did about my daughter.
We moved to Munich, Germany, in 1986 where Terri went to elementary and junior high school. She was big for her age, and defended other children who were being bullied. That resulted in her being bullied herself. We went to the school administration, and things improved slightly. Munich 1986 is where she met her best friend. They have stayed in contact ever since.
On return to the U.S. we moved to Huntsville, Alabama. While there – in fact, during the last year in Munich – she had begun experiencing malaise and pain that would jump from system to system. A general practitioner in Munich decided there was nothing wrong with her except a neurotic mother. With that in her records, we could not get the military to pay for any care.
After a year, my job in Huntsville disintegrated before my eyes, and we moved to the Washington, D.C., area, where Terri blossomed. She made friends with two hearing impaired classmates and learned American Sign Language. She studied Latin in high school and did remarkably well. She attended her senior prom, escorted by a hearing-impaired date. She had done extraordinarily well in Science and Math, and decided she wanted to attend Virginia Tech, do a double-major in pre-med and physics, and go to Vet School. Her new best friend at Virginia Tech intended to complete two years of undergraduate work and then apply directly to vet school. Terri was on board with the same plan.
She met a boy and it quickly became quite serious. She could talk about nothing but Mike when home. She had met her first love. She was a barn burner that first semester; it seemed there was nothing she could not do, and do exceptionally well. She had hit the Zenith of her life and things could only get better.
Then came the second semester and the bubble burst. She was unable to get out of bed most days. She was very, very sick, both physically and emotionally. It was as though someone had thrown a switch. Before the end of the semester, she wound up withdrawing from all her classes. She had been shattered.
From that point forward, Terri has been chronically ill and spent as much time in the hospital as out. Her marriage lasted two years and doesn’t merit a footnote.
Living with us in Northern Virginia, she self-trained as a vet tech. On 9/11, she volunteered immediately at the county Red Cross – Dulles Airport was in our county, and it was overwhelmed with donations of equipment and money. Terri took on the role as Head of IT for the county Red Cross, and set up a network, installed software, acted as the one-person IT Help Desk. She also developed a way to track donations, and the Red Cross had plenty of money.
Afterward, Terri went on to manage a vet clinic, and learned skills she gladly shared with others. She helped elderly neighbors with their pets, something she did almost every day. She needed inpatient treatment for her chronic illness, and we sent her to Florida, Wisconsin and, eventually, Toledo. There, she clicked with a counselor and found a new friend. Jan and her husband were good for her, and she was good for them. She took on a new job running a video rental store, Terri’s first Christmas season there she organized a turkey giveaway for needy customers; she kept that up until she left.
We moved Terri to Nashville in 2012, where she continued caring for people’s pets even after getting a project management job at a health care company. She adopted a small tribe of homeless men, and got them food and clothing as well as some spending money.
That was ten years ago. She worked for three years before having to surrender. She could no longer work, and moved in with us. She immediately began building an animal-friendly environment in our courtyard. Her cat, Everest, went with her on walks – she had trained him to use a leash. Soon we had squirrels and chipmunks and birds over-running the courtyard.
Most of the residents in our community are elderly. Terri helped neighbors with whatever they needed – raking leaves, changing light bulbs, walking their pets, or sitting with them while the owners got a break. She planted trees, bushes and flowers throughout the community and distributed her original art on greeting cards to cheer the lonely. She went on walks most days, stopped and talked to neighbors and their pets, and visited those who needed company.
With her mother she helped manage the food pantry at church, as well as the “backpack ministry” that took food to local schools that students could take home for their families. She came to know Jesus through her fellowship at the Hermitage Church of the Nazarene, and knew many in the congregation.
Terri lived with us for seven years. From the beginning she spent as much time in the hospital as out, and for the past six months was in and out of the hospital at least every two weeks. She was in constant pain, never able to sleep more than two hours at a time. Last Saturday I was awake, reading in our den, which connects the two suites. She came out at noon, got something to drink, and went back to her bedroom, followed by the two bob-tailed cats. At two in the afternoon my wife, her mother, went in to check on her, and found her passed away. I called emergency services, which arrived quickly, but said there was nothing to be done. A medical examiner’s investigator was called, and she confirmed that some time between noon and two p.m. Terri had died.
Neighbors began coming by late that day and throughout the next day. Most of the community visited over the following two days. Our eldest daughter was in Washington, D.C., and we called her husband, our son-in-law. He came here and called his wife on the way. Our surviving daughter was devastated – she had lost her sister and best friend.
Our eldest had been staying with my sister, her widowed aunt, and we reached her that night. Patti and her deceased husband never had children, and felt that our two daughters were theirs as well.
Terri left a huge, gaping hole in our neighborhood, our church and our family. We are comforted by the joy she spread to so many.
What a beautiful tribute to your daughter. She sounds like an amazing gift to all the lives she touched. Despite the pain she suffered she was able to add love and nurturing warmth to those around her. Thank you for sharing
You know, after subscribing to your site, this was the first post of yours that I read.
God Bless you and your wife and family and,
God Bless Your Baby, Terri