WOMEN AGES 50+ FOR OCTOBER 2022

Lisa went out of this world like she came into it, protesting the whole way, on ___date________ at _____place_______.
Born in Minot, North Dakota, (through no fault of her own) to V. and H.B. --, she led a peripatetic life. Until
the age of six, her family moved back and forth from Texas to Montana and back, following the seasons.

They finally settled near a small town in Texas, in late 1966, where she attended school like normal people. She graduated there a year early, in 1977, and left home pretty much at the point of a shotgun just a month later. After various escapades in East Texas, she entered the United States Air Force in 1979.

She married in 1980 during her first tour of duty in England, happily swapping her “maiden” name for an
unspellable Slovakian moniker. She and her military husband were reassigned to Montana in 1982, where she was promoted to Sgt. (E-4), shortly before she was honorably discharged in 1983.

After her husband’s assignments to England, Colorado, and Nevada, Lisa began college, graduating with an Interdisciplinary Studies Bachelor of Arts in Writing and Personal Communication summa cum laude. Her husband having retired from the military, they settled in central Texas, while Lisa began her master’s degree in communication at Texas A&M. Her grief over her mother’s death in 1999 derailed her plans and Lisa abandoned her schoolwork to find a job.

She and her husband (he wasn’t Voldemort, but she’s still not going to name him) moved to northeast Texas in 2000. They bought a much-too-large house in 2001, and Lisa was ordained online by Universal Ministries (yes, the acronym is UM, which pretty well sums it up), in order to perform her sister Ruth’s marriage to this guy who also will not be named. He is not germane to any other part of her life. She went on to marry her brother and nephew in subsequent years.

It’s not as weird as it sounds.

Lisa’s father died in December 2004 and she and her sister went to the funeral to make sure he was dead. The Indonesian tsunami happened two days after he was buried—possibly Mother Earth trying to vomit out the vileness that had been buried on the other side of the earth.

Still living in the much-too-large house, and in a much-too-large body as well, Lisa had gastric bypass surgery in September 2005. She lost 99 pounds in the first six months, and would proceed to lose another 67 pounds over the next year and a half. Her completely cynical brother and sister started a pool (or said they did) on how long her marriage would last after she got skinny.

It lasted three years.

She left him in Illinois, after numerous efforts and therapy and even anti-depressants (the horror!) Lisa headed back for Texas, always her refuge, and landed at her sister’s house in West Texas on Memorial Day weekend of 2008. Her sister had long since kicked out the idiot Lisa married her off to in 2002 and was driving a 40-ton dump truck for an oilfield services company.

A week later, Lisa scored an office job with the same company. On her first day at work, standing on a balcony overlooking the mechanics shop below, she told the girl next to her that balconies always made her want to do the beauty queen wave. She proceeded to demonstrate (it’s elbow-elbow, wrist-wrist-wrist, if you’re curious). Below her, she heard a voice say, “Hello, Princess!” Standing on the concrete shop floor below her was Corey—the man who six months later would reveal his superhero identity as the love of Lisa’s life, and who would marry her in June 2009.

Corey brought with him two amazing people, Kelsey, who was 17, and Johnathon, 15. They ended up calling her “Mom,” and variants thereof, and their babies called her “Gramily,” because she insisted on it. Kelsey left for the Army at barely 18, and Johnny left two years later for the Air Force.

The peripatetic life continued with Corey, as after living in three different houses in that same small town, they left Texas for Oregon in 2011. Back to Texas in 2014, Corey landed a job as the fleet manager at a remote ranch. In the next two years Lisa published her first two books (available on Amazon, hint, hint) and got a job as the managing editor of the newspaper in town. She lasted a year at that, then took on a job writing and managing grants remotely for the Girl Scouts.

In November of 2017 they headed for North Carolina, where Corey was grandpa-in-chief for the grandkids for five months while their son-in-law was deployed to Syria. Shortly after his return, they fled to Arkansas, where they bought their forever home, and have lived in it ever since.

Lisa died happy. She is survived by Corey, the love of her life, their soldier daughter, Kelsey of whatever Army base she happens to be stationed on at this moment, along with her husband Cruz, son, Johnathon, of wherever he’s living at the moment, and whoever he’s married to at the moment; and grandchildren, Tyler, Haley, Levi, Chris, Jaidan, Eli and Elizabeth, whom they’ve never actually met (just the last four).

She is also survived by her brothers and sisters, including but not limited to Ruth of Oklahoma; Carl, Jeff and Jack of Texas. She also had a half-sister named Shirley who’s living somewhere in New England, if she’s still alive, and a half-brother Spencer who died a long time ago. There were also either two or three half-siblings (according to who’s counting) who were her father’s get from one of his earlier wives. It is possible they all survive, but who knows?

She also didn’t name the in-laws, ‘cause she didn’t like most of them (the ones her brothers and sisters married; she actually liked Corey’s siblings). The nephews and nieces are uncountable and mostly amazing, except for the step-nephew who murdered his ex-wife and is hopefully still in jail. If she starts naming them, though, it’s going to cause a ruckus. Oh who cares, she’s dead, they can be as mad they need to be.

Her favorites were Elizabeth, Vivyan, Nathan, Daniel, Alex, Jamie, Adam, Amanda and Caleb. She liked Shawn after she grew up, was pretty fond of Dakota, thought Montana was a *kitten*, never really got to know Jeannie, and the rest tended to run together after a while, especially the children who were kidnapped from other countries and raised as Americans. Not disapproving, just never actually met them.

She preferred to be cremated and her ashes scattered over some ocean somewhere. This is because she knows Corey won’t do what she actually wanted, which is to have the urn with her ashes put on the mantelpiece and stick some googly eyes on it so she can check out his next girlfriend and make snarky remarks. Silently, but he’ll know.

Knowing her family, they decided they’d bury her instead and put up some godawful gravestone. She decided that she will come back and haunt them if they do that.

Her funeral arrangements were under the slightly sketchy care of You Plug ‘Em, We Plant ‘Em Mortuary Services.