There Are Angels Out There

Whether she was making homemade bread, or sewing matching pajamas for all 10 of her grandchildren, Marcella was friendly, funny, and always elegant.

Marcella LaRevitzear and daughter Cyndie Deere.
Marcella wasn’t just a great mother to Cyndie. She was a role model, an inspiration, and her best friend. “There was never a day that we didn’t talk,” Cyndie said. “We had our hair done together, did our grocery shopping together….It was always the best to be with her.”

So when Marcella got sick, Cyndie and her husband, John, invited Marcella into their home so they could care for her. But with Parkinson’s accelerating her Alzheimer’s, Marcella eventually needed around the clock supervision.

“It was really hard for me to keep her safe in the house,” Cyndie said. She couldn’t leave her mom alone for even 15 minutes. She had to sleep in her mother’s bedroom to make sure she didn’t get up and fall or wander off. But it was important to Cyndie to keep her mom at home.

So when Cyndie found out about Angela Hospice, having that extra help right there in her own home was an amazing relief. Her mom loved the visits from staff, and for Cyndie, having a few hours to herself each week gave her the break she needed.

Marcella and Jean LaRevitzear
on their wedding day, June 20, 
1953.
“It was a whole world of difference,” Cyndie said. “It was just amazing…everyone was so nice.”

Marcella had hospice care at home for five and a half months, but when she fell one Tuesday morning and broke her hip, Cyndie called Angela Hospice and they admitted her mom to the Care Center right away. Marcella was unconscious for several days as Cyndie stayed with her at the center. Cyndie’s brothers and children flew in to be with her too. Then for a moment that Friday night, Marcella woke up.

“She opened her eyes and she acted like she knew all of us,” Cyndie said. “I couldn’t have asked for her to have a more peaceful passage. Even though it was the worst thing that ever happened in my life… the feeling of having everyone there, it was pretty incredible.”

FORE HOSPICE
In the nine years since Marcella’s passing, Cyndie and John have been organizing a golf outing each summer. The Two Moms Golf Outing honors Marcella, and the mother of a close family friend who passed away around the same time. Through these outings, the Deere’s along with their friends and family have raised $40,000 for Angela Hospice programs.

“To be able to help other families go through what we went through, it just seems like it’s a good way to give back and be thankful,” Cyndie said.

John and Cyndie Deere.
In addition to honoring Marcella, the Deere’s make a great impact through the Two Moms Golf Outing, both through the important funding the outing raises for Angela Hospice, and the awareness it brings to their community about the help hospice provides.

“I wish we had called earlier,” Cyndie said. “We had already known that there wasn’t a cure. I wish that people had known that there were angels out there.”

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