Obituary

Judy Carol Whitley Worrell passed away at the age of 69 on Thursday, December 19, after a courageous 22-month journey through cancer. Her loving spirit is carried on by her daughters, sons-in-law, grandchildren, her parents and brother, and especially by her adored and adoring husband, Kenneth Worrell. Inseparable from the moment they met in 1962, Judy and Ken spent 49 years of marriage in service to their country throughout their long careers in public education and the United States Air Force, respectively.

A graduate of Benvenue High School and UNC-CH, Judy started her award-winning career in teaching in Selma, Alabama, and followed Ken’s military posts in Nevada, California, New Mexico, Virginia, and Texas. During Ken’s time in Vietnam, Judy cared for her young daughters in Rocky Mount and kept him entertained with news from home through loving letters in her immaculate cursive. A much-beloved English teacher for almost four decades, Judy had an unmatched gift for words, both written and spoken in her soft North Carolina accent.

We were blessed to learn many lessons from Judy, our favorite teacher, over her 69 years:

Buy American whenever you can.

Rides are best in a Cadillac with deep leather seats and piano music in the CD player.

A proper breakfast includes a grande skinny Starbucks vanilla latte.

Naps are best when taken in your comfy burgundy leather chair in front of the television.

It’s fun to chat with strangers, whether you are in line at the grocery store, on the subway in New York City, or enjoying a nice glass of zinfandel at a picnic table in Napa Valley. New friends are everywhere, and old friends are the best.

It’s easy to make a huge difference in the life of child: Read to them, cook their favorite foods, listen to their every story, and fill their life with music. Throw your arms open wide to wrap them in a hug every time a child walks in the room. Hold them to high standards, and know they will rise to the occasion. Love them when they fall and help them get back up again.

Take time to notice the sunset and smell the roses.

Judy is survived by her beloved husband, Kenneth; their daughters Alicia (husband Scott Probasco, and daughters Caroline, Catherine and Mary Claire), Jennifer (partner Peter Mack), and Sara (husband Charles Berg, and son Macklin); her parents, Paul David and Bertha Mae Whitley; her brother, Paul R. Whitley; sister-in-law Christine Shirley Anderson; and many family members and friends in North Carolina and Texas. Judy was welcomed into Heaven with open arms by her sweet in-laws, Thurston and Gertrude Worrell.

A service to honor Judy was held at Bluebonnet Hills Funeral Home in Colleyville, Texas, at 3 PM on Monday, December 23. In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to "The Judy Worrell Memorial Fund" at the American Airlines Credit Union, which will be used to establish a scholarship fund for graduates of North Richland Middle School where Judy taught for over 20 years.

Service details

The visitation to honor Judy Worrell will be this Sunday, December 22, from 2 to 4 PM at Bluebonnet Hills in Colleyville.

The service will be at Bluebonnet Hills on Monday, December 23, at 3 PM.

A private family ceremony for interment at the Dallas-Fort Worth National Cemetery will be held at a later date.

The family is requesting no flowers, please. Instead, we created a scholarship fund in Mom's name, which would make her very happy. For those who wish to donate and honor Mom, the American Airlines Credit Union is accepting memorial donations to "The Judy Worrell Memorial Fund." The credit union can be reached at (800) 533-0035 or at their flagship location:

AA Credit Union Flagship Branch
4151 Amon Carter Blvd.
Fort Worth, TX
76155

We will arrange an online form for donations as well.

Home at last

Judy Carol Whitley Worrell

September 20, 1944 - December 19, 2013

Our mom, Judy Worrell, passed away last night at 5 pm. God and all his angels lit the heavens and welcomed her home with an amazing party, starting with this sunset that darkened to a star-filled sky with a full moon and Jupiter brightly shining. We're relieved she's at peace. Although our hearts are broken, we're grateful to all of you who followed her journey here on the blog. It's been a source of comfort and strength to all of us. Your comments, emails, posts to Facebook, calls and visits have kept us going.

In lieu of flowers, we're requesting that those who wish to honor Mom consider donating to a memorial fund in her name. We will be endowing a scholarship for graduates of Mom's beloved North Richland Middle School and Richland High School.

Details on the scholarship fund, as well as on the funeral service, will be posted later today or tomorrow.

Love to you all.

Forks

Planning for the holidays in a hospice setting is not fun.  There's not a lot of joy to the world, and we see the silent night approaching.  It's an everyday schedule we have: nibbling at very small meals, struggling to get down too many pills, watching the birds when they come, and the television from sun up to sun down. Day after day.

The schedule only changes to take a step down, like finding a new problem.  Mom's skin on her right arm has somehow peeled off to the extent that even putting a bandage on it is dangerous, because peeling off baby-soft gauze takes with it another layer of skin.  Her left arm and her face are swollen at various stages through the day. Her breathing is shallow and labored, and she when she feels the need to cough, the cough lasts for hours and hours, unproductive due to her lack of energy.

It would be easy to sink into a inconsolable state, watching this decline.  And we all get there at one point or another.  Some of us get mad at little, and very big, things.  Things where we believe everyone should know better than to _____ (whatever) - but everyone isn't us.  Some of us are caught unaware by a beautiful Christmas hymn, and then can't breathe the sadness is so deep.  So we sob, hiding in the Wesley Sunday School class until an angel named Nadine comes in, looking for her coat, and ends up holding us until the shudders die away and we're left an empty shell. With yet another day ahead of being a parent to children who deserve a better parent, and a parent to a parent who doesn't deserve any of this horrible disease.  

We could do that.  Or, we could clean out the dishwasher, and talk through a routine task, and learn this:

You know, we have had that fork for a really long time.  It's the first flatwear pattern I remember us having.  

Oh, it's not the first. We have some left from when we first got married.  It's in here somewhere (digging), yep here it is!  I wonder where all the rest went.

Probably in lunchboxes over the last 49 years. Sprinkled in school cafeterias coast to coast. 

Yeah probably. 

That pattern, that's what we bought in 1969 at  Nellis Air Force Base. You don't even remember that.  

Of course I do.  Not buying the silverware, but I remember not being allowed to touch slot machines in the grocery store. 

That spoon - the grapefruit spoon?  It's from Grandma Worrell (dad's mother). 

No, it's not, but she had grapefruit spoons in her drawer too.

And, she did love to eat grapefruit. 

That set?  That's what I bought from the Pottery Barn in Williamsburg, Virginia, before I moved to Turkey.  

No dad, it's not the Pottery Barn. It's just "The Williamsburg Pottery" and there's a big difference.  :)

After that set, we got this new set that your mother really liked.  It's a good thing we have all these forks because we sure do use a lot of them.  

If I had remembered to turn the dishwasher on the past 3 days, we'd have plenty of clean forks instead of a load of dirty ones.

You know your mother's silver set?  She saved her money from when she was a school bus driver in high school to buy that silver.
(I don't think I ever knew that.)

I am thankful for dishwashers and too many forks.  For the many wine glasses I've broken over the past several months, for the meals shared, and for the tears shed with my dad.  For the friends that reach out, for the Christmas cards that are coming in and bringing memories and bits of smiles to Dad's face.   For my angel Nadine who helped me breathe.

For another day.