CommenTerry

A Memorial to Mom - Eight Years

In loving memory of my dear mother, Susie H. Mitchell, who went to be with the Lord eight years ago today, just three days short of her 88th birthday. Mom was born and raised in the rural River Mountain section of Russell County, Virginia. Her parents married each other late in life and she was the only child they had between them, though both had multiple children with previous spouses who had since passed away. Her father died when she about 11, and her mother was left to raise her alone in poverty. Mom had to quit school in the sixth grade because her mother didn’t have enough money buy her books or school supplies. As a young adult, Mom supported herself and her mother, who by then was in declining health, by housekeeping, babysitting, and doing other odd jobs for people in her community. She remained in Russell County until she was 32, caring for her mother.

When her mother passed away in 1958, Mom moved to Hopewell with her sister and brother-in-law, Bertha and William Auten. There she met her future husband, George Mitchell. Mom always dreamed of having four girls, but as luck would have it, she gave birth to four boys: Terry, Lawrence, Edward and Douglas Mitchell. However, she loved us as much any mother could ever love her children. Dad was 14 years older than Mom and had to retire on disability in his early 50’s due to health issues. Mom and Dad didn’t have much when we were growing up, but they gave us everything we needed and raised us in a Christian home. Mom always made sure we were in school when we were supposed to and had nutritious meals to eat, even if she didn’t have enough for herself. And she would nurse us back to health – and take us to the doctor whether or not we wanted to go – whenever we got sick. I always thought she was a little overcautious when it came to our health and safety, but in hindsight I can see that she was just being a good mother.

Mom was devastated in 1986 when Edward died suddenly just short of his 21st birthday, after suffering from bone cancer for more than a year and apparently beating it. Mom’s health was never the same. She was soon diagnosed with congestive heart failure, Type 2 Diabetes, COPD, anxiety, and other ailments. By the time Dad had to go to a nursing home in 1993, I had already taken Mom into my home to care for her. She fell and broke her left leg in 1994 and could never walk again outside the house without the use of a walker, and became dependent on me to drive her everywhere she needed to go. Before that, she had been able to walk to town and back several times a week. When Dad passed away in 1995, she had recovered enough to get out of the house and attend his wake and funeral with the use of her walker.

Over the next 20 years she bounced back a little and her health remained reasonably stable, but she was never able to get to where she was before she broke her leg. In 2005, she had another major setback when she fell and broke her left leg again, and on the same day, suffered cardiac arrest in the emergency room at John Randolph Hospital due to another medical issue. The doctors were able to get her heart started again, but she would face months of rehab in a nursing home before being able to return home again, although, from then on, she would have to use a wheelchair anytime she left the house.

In addition, she began to need oxygen at night, although she didn’t use it during the day. And by that time, she was also diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and began suffering from frequent spells of aspiration pneumonia, many of which required hospitalization. From 2006 through 2011, she was hospitalized an average of once a year with that illness. Then, in June of 2012, she suffered from a sudden and severe case of aspiration pneumonia, which required her to undergo a tracheotomy and stay on a ventilator for more than seven weeks and almost took her life. But after months of rehab in another nursing home, she was able to return home by the end of that year.

She had a relatively good year in 2013 (with no hospitalizations), but she could never again eat the kinds of foods she enjoyed before her 2012 illness. Because of her aspiration risk, she had to stick with mainly soft and pureed foods, most of which she did not like, although she did love her banana pudding and chicken and dumplings. And because of her worsening Parkinson’s disease, she was beginning to have trouble feeding herself. Also, she was having difficulty speaking clearly at times, due to the wound (that never completely healed) from the tracheotomy, although the tube had been removed. Being on a ventilator so long had taken its toll on her. She now needed oxygen all the time and had to use an oxygen concentrator whenever she left the house. She seemed to get tired so much more quickly and needed to go to bed much earlier at night than she had before. And she had constant pain. All of this caused her a great deal of stress.

Early in 2014, her health began to decline even further, as she stopped having the energy and breath to do many of the things she had been doing before. She also began to fall a lot more. On October 8th, 2014, we took her to the hospital with breathing problems and she was once again diagnosed with aspiration pneumonia in both lungs. She did fairly well for a few days with the aid of simple oxygen and antibiotics, but she soon went into sudden respiratory failure, from which she never recovered. Signs of kidney failure soon followed. She didn’t want to be kept alive with machines this time, so we made the decision to put her on hospice care and let her go peacefully. She was worn out from this life and, as a devout Christian, she was looking forward to the next one.

Although we know she is out of her suffering, we dearly miss her. She left a hole in our collective heart that will never be filled. We will always love her. She was the last of her generation of her family. She will never be forgotten. Who could ever forget those sparkling and loving blue eyes? She had a rough time in this life - especially over final nine years - but she always thought of the welfare of her children first, even after we all became adults. We could not have had a better mother than she was to us. She was my best friend. In her latter years, she needed help from me for almost everything she did. But I didn’t mind because she did the same for me when I was a helpless child. Even in her old and decrepit state, she helped make my house a home. Now there’s an empty house where Mom used to be. She never had much of this life's goods, but she laid up her treasures in Heaven. She is now enjoying those treasures along with her mother, father, brothers, sisters, husband, and beloved son, Edward, whom she longed to meet again. We can only imagine the homecoming that took place when she got to Heaven.

Remembering Janet - Two Years

In loving memory of Janet Marie Bryant Hershaw, who passed away two years ago today, September 28^th, 2020. It seems like it was just yesterday that our 5 ½ years together ended abruptly. The pain of losing her was almost unbearable at first, but God has since given me a sense of peace. He also sent Louise (who is now my wife) into my life. Louise and I are enjoying our new married life together, but I will always remember the great times that Janet and I had together. You never forget the first person you had a serious and loving relationship with. Many of you may not understand this, but had it not been for having Janet in my life, I would probably not be a married man right now. For those of you who were not familiar with Janet, here is a brief tribute and recap of her life.

Janet Marie Bryant was born in Newport News on September 29, 1958 to Melvin James Bryant and Lois Helen Boone Bryant. She was the youngest of three children. Young Janet idolized her father. She was proud of the fact that her father taught her to be self–sufficient, and always said she was “raised by a man,” although her mother was just as much as part of her life as he was. She also followed in her father’s footsteps in being very opinionated. She often called herself a “scrapper” although she was, at heart, a very gentle lady. Her father owned a construction company and built many buildings in the Newport News area, including a post office in a nearby town.  During each summer, and on weekends during the school year, Janet enjoyed working for her father at his various construction sites. It was also during her childhood that Janet developed a love for animals, especially cats. She would go on to be the owner of many beloved pets during her lifetime. She excelled in sports and her studies in school, and graduated from Warwick High School in 1976 near the top of her class.

After graduation from high school, she went away to college at Missouri Western State University in St. Joseph, MO. While she was in college, her beloved father fell critically ill. She rushed back to Newport News to be at his side, but he passed away a few days later. Janet was devastated by his untimely death. But she eventually returned to college and graduated with honors. She would eventually go on to earn additional college degrees. As a young college graduate (she had majored in marketing), she excelled in her sales career, had a company car, and regularly exceeded her male coworkers in volume of sales. Back in the 1980’s, sales was not a career that many women entered into.

However, after her two daughters were born, she put her career on hold to be a stay-at-home mom. When her daughters were still young, she built a new, larger home for them on the river in Smithfield.  It was there that she taught her daughters to be self-sufficient, just as her father had taught her. In addition, she always looked out for the many wild animals she shared her property with. She regularly fed the deer, raccoons, possums, birds, etc. in addition to caring for her many pets (mostly cats including a special three-legged one named Wrigley). The deer even seemed to follow her around. One police officer whom she called to the house to investigate someone illegally shooting at the deer was amazed at her. He jokingly asked her if she was “Snow White.” One of her neighbors once told her that when he died, he wanted to come back as one of her animals.

While her daughters were in high school, the tragic events of 9/11 prompted Janet to decide to return to the workforce and serve her community in some capacity. She wanted to work in an operating room. But the only path that she knew to get there was to become an operating room nurse. So she went back to school and studied to become a nurse. And, at age 49, she reached that goal, becoming an operating room nurse at Riverside Regional Medical Center in Newport News. Because she was such a thorough and conscientious worker, she moved up the ladder quickly. She became the head of general surgery and trauma at Riverside, getting that position over nurses with decades more experience than she. While in that position she helped open a new surgical pavilion at that hospital. If you needed surgery, you would have wanted Janet to be your operating room nurse.

Several years later, her mother, whose health was beginning to decline, had decided to move to an adult home in Richmond. To have better access to care for her mother, Janet resigned her position at Riverside and took a new one at Henrico Doctors Hospital in Richmond. But in a frustrating twist of fate, her mother backed out of her decision to go to an adult home in Richmond and decided to remain in the Tidewater area. However, Janet had already taken the position in Richmond, and decided to stick with it for a while.

Janet continued to work in Richmond for about two more years until her mother had to go to a nursing home in Yorktown. Knowing that her mother had only a short time to live, Janet quit her job in Richmond at the end of 2015 to take care of her mother’s medical needs, eventually taking her mother into her own home in Smithfield to care for her there. Her mother passed away on Memorial Day weekend in 2016 with Janet by her side.

Janet soon went back to work, doing two separate stints as a hospice nurse. But she eventually came to the realization that hospice work was not for her. So at the beginning of 2018, she quit the second of her two hospice jobs and decided to stay at home for a while and take care of her only two her remaining (and elderly) pets: her cat, Lillian, and her dog, Sally. Both of them died before the end of 2018, so Janet started making plans to go back to work in 2019. But early in that year, because she was starting to experience pain in her hips, she decided to stay off one more year and go back to work as a nurse in 2020, although she reasoned that her hip problems would probably keep her from returning to the rigors of the operating room.

But about two months before the dawn of 2020, she was involved in a freak accident at home that ultimately resulted in her right leg being amputated below the knee in January at Riverside, the very hospital where she began her career as an operating room nurse. After being discharged from the hospital, she was sent to a rehab facility in Yorktown to stay until the middle of February. When she was released, I brought her to my home in Hopewell to continue rehabbing. She got a prosthetic leg in August and was getting physical therapy to learn to walk on it. She had hoped to be out of her wheelchair and exclusively on a walker by the end of October, and to be able to completely ditch the walker and be on her feet by the holiday season and perhaps return to her home in Smithfield.

But that was apparently not the Lord’s will. She passed away as a result of previously undiagnosed cardiac problems just one day short of her 62^nd birthday She is missed (and will continue to be missed) by all who knew and loved her. But Janet would not have you lament the fact that her lifespan was relatively short by today’s standards. She was one who lived out loud and emphasized quality of life over the quantity of years – and encouraged others to do likewise. She believed in living in the present and taking time to savor the good things of life to their fullest. She was proud of her American-Indian and Irish ancestry. Although she did like to travel occasionally, she would tell you that she was a homebody. She loved to cook, and looked forward to the day when she would be able to cook nearly fulltime. Though she never had weight problems, she unapologetically loved to eat. She didn’t mind getting goofy, whether dancing around at home while listening to her favorite music on Pandora, or swaying through the isles in public places like Walmart. It was all part of her way of having a good time. She was politically conservative and very patriotic.

She will be remembered as a caring, hard-working person who always put others ahead of herself. She looked out for the health and well-being of those around her, while sometimes leaving herself at risk. Pets were her passion – she was a big advocate of no-kill shelters. She was a critical thinker who rarely accepted the conventional wisdom about anything. She wasn’t from Missouri (although she went to college there), but you had to show her. She had little tolerance for pretense, equivocation, or deceit – she said what she meant and meant what she said. Her living legacy will be her two accomplished daughters, Kasey, who is a former U.S. Marine and now an ICU nurse; and Jamie, who has a doctorate degree, and is a researcher who studies the functions of the human brain. One of Janet’s favorite songs was “Amazing Grace.” That was quite appropriate, as she truly lived an amazing life.

 

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Get Free Lotto Tickets with Yotta Code TERRY303!

 I want to tell y'all about a special kind of FDIC-insured bank account (or you can choose a non-insured Crypto account) that not only pays you more interest than most banks do, but also gives you what amounts to free "lotto" tickets each week. You can access it via an app called Yotta, which can be downloaded for free from Google Play or the Apple Store. Yotta holds a drawing every Sunday night for a top prize of $10 million! As with Powerball and Mega Millions, your odds of winning the top prize are remote. However, there are lesser prizes as well, such as a brand new Tesla, $10,000, $2500, and other cash prizes. Yotta awards you one "Lotto" ticket each week for every $25 you have on account (get even more tickets with a Crypto account). As with the paid lotto games, you can pick your own numbers or let Yotta pick randomly generate the numbers for you. But there are other ways to earn tickets and be a big winner with Yotta. If you opt to use a free Yotta debit card (which you can use fee-free at over 55,000 ATMs), you will get a free ticket for every $10 you spend with your card. Spend $2000 in the first four months you have it, and you'll get 1000 bonus tickets. But that's not the only benefit of using a Yotta debit card. Any time you use it, you have a 1 in 100 chance of getting your purchase (up to $5000) for free! If your purchase is for dining out, the chances of getting your bill paid for free are even better! Do you think you could get that from your bank? In addition, if you set up direct deposit with Yotta, you will get even more bonus tickets every week. On top of all that, if you use the code TERRY303 when you sign up, you'll get up to 200 bonus tickets right off the bat! With Yotta, it's all upside. Your money is insured up to $250,000 by the FDIC (as long as you opt for a regular account and not a Crypto account) and there are never any fees or charges. So what are you waiting for? If you have any questions, I'll be glad to find the answers for you. Please share this post even if you are not interested. Someone else might be.

A Memorial to Mom - Seven Years

In loving memory of my dear mother, Susie H. Mitchell, who went to be with the Lord seven years ago today, just three days short of her 88th birthday. Mom was born and raised in the rural River Mountain section of Russell County, Virginia. Her parents married each other late in life and she was the only child they had between them, though both had multiple children with previous spouses who had since passed away. Her father died when she about 11, and her mother was left to raise her alone in poverty. Mom had to quit school in the sixth grade because her mother didn’t have enough money buy her books or school supplies. As a young adult, Mom supported herself and her mother, who by then was in declining health, by housekeeping, babysitting, and doing other odd jobs for people in her community. She remained in Russell County until she was 32, caring for her mother.

When her mother passed away in 1958, Mom moved to Hopewell with her sister and brother-in-law, Bertha and William Auten. There she met her future husband, George Mitchell. Mom always dreamed of having four girls, but as luck would have it, she gave birth to four boys: Terry, Lawrence, Edward and Douglas Mitchell. However, she loved us as much any mother could ever love her children. Dad was 14 years older than Mom and had to retire on disability in his early 50’s due to health issues. Mom and Dad didn’t have much when we were growing up, but they gave us everything we needed and raised us in a Christian home. Mom always made sure we were in school when we were supposed to and had nutritious meals to eat, even if she didn’t have enough for herself. And she would nurse us back to health – and take us to the doctor whether or not we wanted to go – whenever we got sick. I always thought she was a little overcautious when it came to our health and safety, but in hindsight I can see that she was just being a good mother.

Mom was devastated in 1986 when Edward died suddenly just short of his 21st birthday, after suffering from bone cancer for more than a year and apparently beating it. Mom’s health was never the same. She was soon diagnosed with congestive heart failure, Type 2 Diabetes, COPD, anxiety, and other ailments. By the time Dad had to go to a nursing home in 1993, I had already taken Mom into my home to care for her. She fell and broke her left leg in 1994 and could never walk again outside the house without the use of a walker, and became dependent on me to drive her everywhere she needed to go. Before that, she had been able to walk to town and back several times a week. When Dad passed away in 1995, she had recovered enough to get out of the house and attend his wake and funeral with the use of her walker.

Over the next 20 years she bounced back a little and her health remained reasonably stable, but she was never able to get to where she was before she broke her leg. In 2005, she had another major setback when she fell and broke her left leg again, and on the same day, suffered cardiac arrest in the emergency room at John Randolph Hospital due to another medical issue. The doctors were able to get her heart started again, but she would face months of rehab in a nursing home before being able to return home again, although, from then on, she would have to use a wheelchair anytime she left the house.

In addition, she began to need oxygen at night, although she didn’t use it during the day. And by that time, she was also diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and began suffering from frequent spells of aspiration pneumonia, many of which required hospitalization. From 2006 through 2011, she was hospitalized an average of once a year with that illness. Then, in June of 2012, she suffered from a sudden and severe case of aspiration pneumonia, which required her to undergo a tracheotomy and stay on a ventilator for more than seven weeks and almost took her life. But after months of rehab in another nursing home, she was able to return home by the end of that year.

She had a relatively good year in 2013 (with no hospitalizations), but she could never again eat the kinds of foods she enjoyed before her 2012 illness. Because of her aspiration risk, she had to stick with mainly soft and pureed foods, most of which she did not like, although she did love her banana pudding and chicken and dumplings. And because of her worsening Parkinson’s disease, she was beginning to have trouble feeding herself. Also, she was having difficulty speaking clearly at times, due to the wound (that never completely healed) from the tracheotomy, although the tube had been removed. Being on a ventilator so long had taken its toll on her. She now needed oxygen all the time and had to use an oxygen concentrator whenever she left the house. She seemed to get tired so much more quickly and needed to go to bed much earlier at night than she had before. And she had constant pain. All of this caused her a great deal of stress.

Early in 2014, her health began to decline even further, as she stopped having the energy and breath to do many of the things she had been doing before. She also began to fall a lot more. On October 8th, 2014, we took her to the hospital with breathing problems and she was once again diagnosed with aspiration pneumonia in both lungs. She did fairly well for a few days with the aid of simple oxygen and antibiotics, but she soon went into sudden respiratory failure, from which she never recovered. Signs of kidney failure soon followed. She didn’t want to be kept alive with machines this time, so we made the decision to put her on hospice care and let her go peacefully. She was worn out from this life and, as a devout Christian, she was looking forward to the next one.

Although we know she is out of her suffering, we dearly miss her. She left a hole in our collective heart that will never be filled. We will always love her. She was the last of her generation of her family. She will never be forgotten. Who could ever forget those sparkling and loving blue eyes? She had a rough time in this life - especially over final nine years - but she always thought of the welfare of her children first, even after we all became adults. We could not have had a better mother than she was to us. She was my best friend. In her latter years, she needed help from me for almost everything she did. But I didn’t mind because she did the same for me when I was a helpless child. Even in her old and decrepit state, she helped make my house a home. Now there’s an empty house where Mom used to be. She never had much of this life's goods, but she laid up her treasures in Heaven. She is now enjoying those treasures along with her mother, father, brothers, sisters, husband, and beloved son, Edward, whom she longed to meet again. We can only imagine the homecoming that took place when she got to Heaven.

A Memorial to Mom - Six Years

In loving memory of my dear mother, Susie H. Mitchell, who went to be with the Lord six years ago today at this very time, just three days short of her 88th birthday. Mom was born and raised in the rural River Mountain section of Russell County, Virginia. Her parents married each other late in life and she was the only child they had between them, though both had multiple children with previous spouses who had since passed away. Her father died when she about 11, and her mother was left to raise her alone in poverty. Mom had to quit school in the sixth grade because her mother didn’t have enough money buy her books or school supplies. As a young adult, Mom supported herself and her mother, who by then was in declining health, by housekeeping, babysitting, and doing other odd jobs for people in her community. She remained in Russell County until she was 32, caring for her mother.

When her mother passed away in 1958, Mom moved to Hopewell with her sister and brother-in-law, Bertha and William Auten. There she met her future husband, George Mitchell. Mom always dreamed of having four girls, but as luck would have it, she gave birth to four boys: Terry, Lawrence, Edward and Douglas Mitchell. However, she loved us as much any mother could ever love her children. Dad was 14 years older than Mom and had to retire on disability in his early 50’s due to health issues. Mom and Dad didn’t have much when we were growing up, but they gave us everything we needed and raised us in a Christian home. Mom always made sure we were in school when we were supposed to and had nutritious meals to eat, even if she didn’t have enough for herself. And she would nurse us back to health – and take us to the doctor whether or not we wanted to go – whenever we got sick. I always thought she was a little overcautious when it came to our health and safety, but in hindsight I can see that she was just being a good mother.

Mom was devastated in 1986 when Edward died suddenly just short of his 21st birthday, after suffering from bone cancer for more than a year and apparently beating it. Mom’s health was never the same. She was soon diagnosed with congestive heart failure, Type 2 Diabetes, COPD, anxiety, and other ailments. By the time Dad had to go to a nursing home in 1993, I had already taken Mom into my home to care for her. She fell and broke her left leg in 1994 and could never walk again outside the house without the use of a walker, and became dependent on me to drive her everywhere she needed to go. Before that, she had been able to walk to town and back several times a week. When Dad passed away in 1995, she had recovered enough to get out of the house and attend his wake and funeral with the use of her walker.

Over the next 20 years she bounced back a little and her health remained reasonably stable, but she was never able to get to where she was before she broke her leg. In 2005, she had another major setback when she fell and broke her left leg again, and on the same day, suffered cardiac arrest in the emergency room at John Randolph Hospital due to another medical issue. The doctors were able to get her heart started again, but she would face months of rehab in a nursing home before being able to return home again, although, from then on, she would have to use a wheelchair anytime she left the house.

In addition, she began to need oxygen at night, although she didn’t use it during the day. And by that time, she was also diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and began suffering from frequent spells of aspiration pneumonia, many of which required hospitalization. From 2006 through 2011, she was hospitalized an average of once a year with that illness. Then, in June of 2012, she suffered from a sudden and severe case of aspiration pneumonia, which required her to undergo a tracheotomy and stay on a ventilator for more than seven weeks and almost took her life. But after months of rehab in another nursing home, she was able to return home by the end of that year.

She had a relatively good year in 2013 (with no hospitalizations), but she could never again eat the kinds of foods she enjoyed before her 2012 illness. Because of her aspiration risk, she had to stick with mainly soft and pureed foods, most of which she did not like, although she did love her banana pudding and chicken and dumplings. And because of her worsening Parkinson’s disease, she was beginning to have trouble feeding herself. Also, she was having difficulty speaking clearly at times, due to the wound (that never completely healed) from the tracheotomy, although the tube had been removed. Being on a ventilator so long had taken its toll on her. She now needed oxygen all the time and had to use an oxygen concentrator whenever she left the house. She seemed to get tired so much more quickly and needed to go to bed much earlier at night than she had before. And she had constant pain. All of this caused her a great deal of stress.

Early in 2014, her health began to decline even further, as she stopped having the energy and breath to do many of the things she had been doing before. She also began to fall a lot more. On October 8th, 2014, we took her to the hospital with breathing problems and she was once again diagnosed with aspiration pneumonia in both lungs. She did fairly well for a few days with the aid of simple oxygen and antibiotics, but she soon went into sudden respiratory failure, from which she never recovered. Signs of kidney failure soon followed. She didn’t want to be kept alive with machines this time, so we made the decision to put her on hospice care and let her go peacefully. She was worn out from this life and, as a devout Christian, she was looking forward to the next one.

Although we know she is out of her suffering, we dearly miss her. She left a hole in our collective heart that will never be filled. We will always love her. She was the last of her generation of her family. She will never be forgotten. Who could ever forget those sparkling and loving blue eyes? She had a rough time in this life - especially over final nine years - but she always thought of the welfare of her children first, even after we all became adults. We could not have had a better mother than she was to us. She was my best friend. In her latter years, she needed help from me for almost everything she did. But I didn’t mind because she did the same for me when I was a helpless child. Even in her old and decrepit state, she helped make my house a home. Now there’s an empty house where Mom used to be. She never had much of this life's goods, but she laid up her treasures in Heaven. She is now enjoying those treasures along with her mother, father, brothers, sisters, husband, and beloved son, Edward, whom she longed to meet again. We can only imagine the homecoming that took place when she got to Heaven.

A Memorial to Mom - Five Years

In loving memory of my dear mother, Susie H. Mitchell, who went to be with the Lord five years ago today at this very time, just three days short of her 88th birthday. Mom was born and raised in the rural River Mountain section of Russell County, Virginia. Her parents married each other late in life and she was the only child they had between them, though both had multiple children with previous spouses who had since passed away. Her father died when she about 11, and her mother was left to raise her alone in poverty. Mom had to quit school in the sixth grade because her mother didn’t have enough money buy her books or school supplies. As a young adult, Mom supported herself and her mother, who by then was in declining health, by housekeeping, babysitting, and doing other odd jobs for people in her community. She remained in Russell County until she was 32, caring for her mother.

When her mother passed away in 1958, Mom moved to Hopewell with her sister and brother-in-law, Bertha and William Auten. There she met her future husband, George Mitchell. Mom always dreamed of having four girls, but as luck would have it, she gave birth to four boys: Terry, Lawrence, Edward and Douglas Mitchell. However, she loved us as much any mother could ever love her children. Dad was 14 years older than Mom and had to retire on disability in his early 50’s due to health issues. Mom and Dad didn’t have much when we were growing up, but they gave us everything we needed and raised us in a Christian home. Mom always made sure we were in school when we were supposed to and had nutritious meals to eat, even if she didn’t have enough for herself. And she would nurse us back to health – and take us to the doctor whether or not we wanted to go – whenever we got sick. I always thought she was a little overcautious when it came to our health and safety, but in hindsight I can see that she was just being a good mother.

Mom was devastated in 1986 when Edward died suddenly just short of his 21st birthday, after suffering from bone cancer for more than a year and apparently beating it. Mom’s health was never the same. She was soon diagnosed with congestive heart failure, Type 2 Diabetes, COPD, anxiety, and other ailments. By the time Dad had to go to a nursing home in 1993, I had already taken Mom into my home to care for her. She fell and broke her left leg in 1994 and could never walk again outside the house without the use of a walker, and became dependent on me to drive her everywhere she needed to go. Before that, she had been able to walk to town and back several times a week. When Dad passed away in 1995, she had recovered enough to get out of the house and attend his wake and funeral with the use of her walker.

Over the next 20 years she bounced back a little and her health remained reasonably stable, but she was never able to get to where she was before she broke her leg. In 2005, she had another major setback when she fell and broke her left leg again, and on the same day, suffered cardiac arrest in the emergency room at John Randolph Hospital due to another medical issue. The doctors were able to get her heart started again, but she would face months of rehab in a nursing home before being able to return home again, although, from then on, she would have to use a wheelchair anytime she left the house.

In addition, she began to need oxygen at night, although she didn’t use it during the day. And by that time, she was also diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and began suffering from frequent spells of aspiration pneumonia, many of which required hospitalization. From 2006 through 2011, she was hospitalized an average of once a year with that illness. Then, in June of 2012, she suffered from a sudden and severe case of aspiration pneumonia, which required her to undergo a tracheotomy and stay on a ventilator for more than seven weeks and almost took her life. But after months of rehab in another nursing home, she was able to return home by the end of that year.

She had a relatively good year in 2013 (with no hospitalizations), but she could never again eat the kinds of foods she enjoyed before her 2012 illness. Because of her aspiration risk, she had to stick with mainly soft and pureed foods, most of which she did not like, although she did love her banana pudding and chicken and dumplings. And because of her worsening Parkinson’s disease, she was beginning to have trouble feeding herself. Also, she was having difficulty speaking clearly at times, due to the wound (that never completely healed) from the tracheotomy, although the tube had been removed. Being on a ventilator so long had taken its toll on her. She now needed oxygen all the time and had to use an oxygen concentrator whenever she left the house. She seemed to get tired so much more quickly and needed to go to bed much earlier at night than she had before. And she had constant pain. All of this caused her a great deal of stress.

Early in 2014, her health began to decline even further, as she stopped having the energy and breath to do many of the things she had been doing before. She also began to fall a lot more. On October 8th, 2014, we took her to the hospital with breathing problems and she was once again diagnosed with aspiration pneumonia in both lungs. She did fairly well for a few days with the aid of simple oxygen and antibiotics, but she soon went into sudden respiratory failure, from which she never recovered. Signs of kidney failure soon followed. She didn’t want to be kept alive with machines this time, so we made the decision to put her on hospice care and let her go peacefully. She was worn out from this life and, as a devout Christian, she was looking forward to the next one.

Although we know she is out of her suffering, we dearly miss her. She left a hole in our collective heart that will never be filled. We will always love her. She was the last of her generation of her family. She will never be forgotten. Who could ever forget those sparkling and loving blue eyes? She had a rough time in this life - especially over final nine years - but she always thought of the welfare of her children first, even after we all became adults. We could not have had a better mother than she was to us. She was my best friend. In her latter years, she needed help from me for almost everything she did. But I didn’t mind because she did the same for me when I was a helpless child. Even in her old and decrepit state, she helped make my house a home. Now there’s an empty house where Mom used to be. She never had much of this life's goods, but she laid up her treasures in Heaven. She is now enjoying those treasures along with her mother, father, brothers, sisters, husband, and beloved son, Edward, whom she longed to meet again. We can only imagine the homecoming that took place when she got to Heaven.

A Memorial to Mom - Four Years

In loving memory of my dear mother, Susie H. Mitchell, who went to be with the Lord four years ago today at this very time, just three days short of her 88th birthday. Mom was born on October 27, 1926 to James Madison Hess and Lydia McGlothlin Hess, and grew up in the rural River Mountain section of Russell County, Virginia. Her parents married each other late in life and she was the only child they had between them, though both had multiple children with previous spouses who had since passed away. Her father died when she about 11, and her mother was left to raise her alone in poverty. Mom had to quit school in the sixth grade because her mother didn’t have enough money buy her books or school supplies. As a young adult, Mom supported herself and her mother, who by then was in declining health, by housekeeping, babysitting, and doing other odd jobs for people in her community. She remained in Russell County until she was 32, caring for her mother.

When her mother passed away in 1958, Mom moved to Hopewell with her sister and brother-in-law, Bertha and William Auten. There she met her future husband, George Mitchell. Mom always dreamed of having four girls, but as luck would have it, she gave birth to four boys: Terry, Lawrence, Edward, and Douglas Mitchell. However, she loved us as much any mother could ever love her children. Dad was 14 years older than Mom and had to retire on disability in his early 50’s due to health issues. Mom and Dad didn’t have much when we were growing up, but they gave us everything we needed and raised us in a Christian home. Mom always made sure we were in school when we were supposed to and had nutritious meals to eat, even if she didn’t have enough for herself. And she would nurse us back to health – and take us to the doctor whether or not we wanted to go – whenever we got sick. I always thought she was a little overcautious when it came to our health and safety, but in hindsight I can see that she was just being a good mother.

Mom was devastated in 1986 when Edward died suddenly just short of his 21st birthday, after suffering from bone cancer for more than a year and apparently beating it. Mom’s health was never the same. She was soon diagnosed with congestive heart failure, Type 2 Diabetes, COPD, anxiety, and other ailments. By the time Dad had to go to a nursing home in 1993, I had already taken Mom into my home to care for her. She fell and broke her left leg in 1994 and could never walk again outside the house without the use of a walker, and became dependent on me to drive her everywhere she needed to go. Before that, she had been able to walk to town and back several times a week. When Dad passed away in 1995, she had recovered enough to get out of the house and attend his wake and funeral with the use of her walker.

Over the next 20 years she bounced back a little and her health remained reasonably stable, but she was never able to get to where she was before she broke her leg. In 2005, she had another major setback when she fell and broke her left leg again, and on the same day, suffered cardiac arrest in the emergency room at John Randolph Hospital due to another medical issue. The doctors were able to get her heart started again, but she would face months of rehab in a nursing home before being able to return home again, although, from then on, she would have to use a wheelchair anytime she left the house.

In addition, she began to need oxygen at night, although didn’t use it during the day. And by that time, she was also diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease and began suffering from frequent spells of aspiration pneumonia, many of which required hospitalization. From 2006 through 2011, she was hospitalized an average of once a year with that illness. Then, in June of 2012, she suffered from a sudden and severe case of aspiration pneumonia, which required her to undergo a tracheotomy and stay on a ventilator for more than seven weeks and almost took her life. But after months of rehab in another nursing home, she was able to return home by the end of that year.

She had a relatively good year in 2013 (with no hospitalizations), but she could never again eat the kinds of foods she enjoyed before her 2012 illness. Because of her aspiration risk, she had to stick with mainly soft and pureed foods, most of which she did not like, although she did love her banana pudding and chicken and dumplings. And because of her worsening Parkinson’s Disease, she was beginning to have trouble feeding herself. Also, she was having difficulty speaking clearly at times, due to the wound (that never completely healed) from the tracheotomy, although the tube had been removed. Being on a ventilator so long had taken its toll on her. She now needed oxygen all the time and had to use a portable oxygen concentrator whenever she left the house. She could no longer get up at night to use the bathroom without assistance from me. She seemed to get tired so much more quickly and needed to go to bed much earlier at night than she had before. And she had constant pain. All of this caused her a great deal of stress.

Early in 2014, her health began to decline even further, as she stopped having the energy and breath to do many of the things she had been doing before. She also began to fall a lot more. On October 8th, 2014, we took her to the hospital with breathing problems and she was once again diagnosed with aspiration pneumonia in both lungs. She did fairly well for a few days with the aid of simple oxygen and antibiotics, but she soon went into sudden respiratory failure, from which she never recovered. Signs of kidney failure soon followed. She didn’t want to be kept alive with machines this time, so we made the decision to put her on hospice care and let her go peacefully. She was worn out from this life and, as a devout Christian, she was looking forward to the next one.

Although we know she is out of her suffering, we dearly miss her. She left a hole in our collective heart that will never be filled. We will always love her. She was the last of her generation of the Hess/Mitchell family. She will never be forgotten. Who could ever forget those sparkling and loving blue eyes? She had a rough time in this life - especially over final nine years - but she always thought of the welfare of her children first, even after we all became adults. We could not have had a better mother than she was to us. She was my best friend. In her latter years, she needed help from me for almost everything she did. But I didn’t mind because she did the same for me when I was a helpless child. Even in her old and decrepit state, she helped make my house a home. Now there’s an empty house where Mom used to be. She never had much of this life's goods, but she laid up her treasures in Heaven. She is now enjoying those treasures along with her mother, father, brothers, sisters, husband, and beloved son, Edward, whom she longed to meet again. We can only imagine the homecoming that took place when she got to Heaven.

Who's Doing the Politicizing?

Back in August, you were hearing a lot in the media about how the murder of Mollie Tibbetts should not be "politicized." And several members of her family said they didn't want that either. However, Heather Heyer's family eagerly politicized her murder in order to create the the illusion that every member of the Alt-Right is a killer. Sarah Brady didn't have any problem politicizing the shooting of her husband. Ditto Mark Kelly regarding the assassination attempt on his wife, Gabby Giffords. And those parents from Virginia Tech to Sandy Hook to Parkland had no problem politicizing the deaths of their children in order to push for tighter gun control. I smell hypocrisy in the air.

https://commenterry.blogs.com/commenterry/2022/07/get-free-lotto-tickets-with-yotta-code-terry303.html 

 

Appeasing the Democrats Will Not Work

Let's be clear about something. This FBI investigation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh that the Republicans have agreed to is not going to appease the Democrats. History has demonstrated that appeasement never works. Our society has gotten itself into the condition it's in today because of repeated attempts appease irrational people. Even if the investigation clears Kavanaugh of any wrongdoing, the Democrats will still vote against him. They will still protest his confirmation to the Supreme Court and say they "believe the woman."

https://commenterry.blogs.com/commenterry/2022/07/get-free-lotto-tickets-with-yotta-code-terry303.html