Teresa left us much too soon. While she was here she did so much for so many. Her last job she may have loved the most was being a Media Specialist where she taught for seven years. When she was first diagnosed with ALS her students raised $9,200 in her honor to help establish an ALS Center in Greenville. Even though she was sick she led a Greenville High School to raise $225,000 for this new ALS Center in Greenville. And today you will find a nurse navigator and open door for those with ALS and their families.
I visited her one day with her Daddy in June 2015 and the picture above was taken that day. We talked about everything books, dogs, family, church and and a whole lot more. She and her family visited our church's Christmas Eve service as long as she could. He father died July 25, 2021 just weeks before Teresa slipped away. She was not able to go to his service yet she received guests at the church as sick as she was and insisted on being at the funeral. Three weeks later she joined her Daddy.
And so many of us are beyond sadness when we remember Teresa's long and courageous journey with the dreaded ALS. She leaves behind her Mother, Becky Jo Clark and a sister and a brother and two grandsons and a whole company of friends.
I don't know what to say in a time like this and so I turn to Dostoevsky for and a message for Teresa and all of us.
"What keeps me going is that I believe like a child that suffering will be healed and made up for, that in the world's finale something so great will come to pass that's going to suffice for all our hearts, for the comforting of all our sorrows, and the atonement of all the crimes of humanity. And I want to be there when suddenly everyone understands what it all been for."
Benediction
"Into paradise may the angels lead dear Teresa;
at her coming may the martyrs take her up into eternal rest,
and may the chorus of angels lead her to that holy city
and the place of perpetual light."
--from the Roman Catholic Mass for the Dead
--Roger Lovette/ rogerlovette.blogspot.com
Beautifully done, for a beautiful person, Roger! Thanks for this story.
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