THE PLASMA PROGRAM
EXPLORE THE ADC
ARKANSAS INJUSTICE
ARKANSAS HEROES
TANTS
Sue Tant Thurston Pick of the Litter
CONTACT
GRIZMAN PARKER
Prisons of the Mind
MARA LEVERITT
ED GRIFFIN
JOHN P. CONTINI
LINKS
GOOD BOOKS
The Devil's Knot
The Boys on the Tracks
The Last Pentacle of the Sun
Dystopia
Veto
Prisoners of the Williwaw
Beyond the Vows
Danger Road
Feeling the Heat
MY BROTHER WAS A BLOOD COW FOR THE ARKANSAS DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTION
BUDDY TANT IN THE MARINE CORPS - 1967
This
was my beloved brother, Robert B. Tant, Jr., (Bud). He was an inmate at the infamous Cummins Unit of the Arkansas Department of Correction, where plasma from inmates was harvested and sold for the production of medicines.
Bud had hepatitis B and C but didn't know it. However, according to John Byus, Medical Administrator of the Arkansas Department of Correction THEY knew
it - and yet they harvested his plasma and that of other inmates they knew to be infected with hepatitis, HIV and every other blood-borne disease known to man.
They sold this plasma, knowing that it would be pooled in vats containing hundreds of gallons of plasma which would also become infected, and then be processed into blood-based medicines such as cryoprecipitate, as well as Factors 8 and 9, all of which are used to control hemorrhages. The blood clotting medicines were not heat-treated to kill pathogens, as were other human plasma-based medicines such as gamma globulin and serum albumin, so when clotting agents were administered to millions of hemorrhaging patients, they were infected with deadly blood-borne diseases.
As of 1999, the World Health Organiztion estimated that at least one million people throughtout the world - including the USA - had been DIRECTLY infected with hepatitis and/or HIV through use of blood-based products made from human blood plasma, milked from prisoners. The WHO didn't speculate on how many cross-infections might have occurred from this primary victim base, and was also unaware at that time that as many as 3,000,000 young mothers and infants in Japan may have become infected with these deadly viruses through infusions of cryoprecipitate administered to control excessive bleeding during childbirth.
However high the numbers presently directly or indirectly infected through plasma originating in the Cummins Unit of the Arkansas Department of Correction, the toll will continue to grow exponentially until science finds vaccines against or cures for the plague unleashed on the planet by the Arkansas Department of Correction.
The evil men responsible for this global atrocity counted on the victims to die quickly, without ever knowing how they had been infected. When advances in medical science spoiled that plan, they counted on the world not to care.
Click the buttons on the left to learn more about the exportation of sickness and death from Arkansas prisons, which were characterized by Supreme Court Justice John Stephens as a "dark and evil world", and learn more about the monsters who still profit from this and many other crimes and injustices.
Please let them know you care.
BUD IN JULY 1984 AS HE LOOKED BEFORE HIS INCARCERATION IN DECEMBER 1984
BUD - CUMMINS UNIT 1986 - THE PLASMA DONOR YEARS
BUD, DYING OF UNTREATED HEPATITIS IN THE CUMMINS UNIT - 1997
BUD AND HIS TWO BELOVED SISTERS, SUE AND LINDA 1991
STEP-DAD BOB JONES, BUD AND MOM DURING THEIR VISIT ON HIS LAST CHRISTMAS, 1998
ROBERT B. TANT SR. RIGHT AFTER HIS RELEASE FROM 14 MONTHS AS A JAPANESE PRISONER OF WAR DURING WWII - WEIGHT 85 LBS.
ROBERT TANT, JR., (BUD), 2 WEEKS BEFORE HIS DELIVERANCE FROM THE ADC - WEIGHT (LESS SWELLING) 75 LBS.
NOTE THE BRUISING ON HIS SIDE WHERE HE WAS ASSAULTED BY A GUARD THREE WEEKS PRIOR TO HIS DEATH WHEN HE FELL AND WAS UNABLE TO RISE ON COMMAND. IN THE ASSUALT HIS RIB WAS BROKEN, CAUSING HIM TO CONTRACT PNEUMONIA DUE TO REDUCED BREATHING CAPACITY. WHILE SHAKING VIOLENTLY DURING ACUTE RESPIRATORY DISTRESS A FEW DAYS AFTER HIS RIB WAS FRACTURED A "NURSE" AT THE DIAGNOSTIC UNIT SLAPPED HIM IN THE HEAD FOR SPILLING JUICE SHE HAD GIVEN HIM TO TAKE A PILL WITH. THE LUMP ON HIS STOMACH IS FROM HERNIA SURGERY AFTER WHICH HE WAS NOT PROVIDED MEDICATION FOR NAUSEA. IN THE THROES OF VIOLENT VOMITING HE RUPTURED INTERNAL STITCHES AND DIED WITH THE RESULTANT, MUCH WORSE HERNIA
BUD, DYING IN A COMA, BUT TIED TO THE HOSPITAL BED
BUD COULDN'T CLOSE HIS EYES, AND ALTHOUGH WE KEPT CLOSING THEM, THEY WOULDN'T STAY CLOSED. WE DID OUR BEST TO COMFORT AND SOOTHE HIM. HE COULD NEVER RESPOND TO US, BUT MEDICAL PERSONNEL SAID THAT HE KNEW WE WERE THERE BECAUSE HIS BLOOD PRESSURE WOULD RISE WHEN WE ENTERED HIS ROOM AND SPOKE TO HIM
FACTOR 8: THE ARKANSAS PRISON BLOOD SCANDAL
Kelly Duda and Concrete Films have produced a documentary which details the corruption and greed that led the Arkansas Department of Correction to spread death from Arkansas prisons to the entire world. Hear the story from the mouths of those responsible for the harvesting of infected human blood plasma, and its sale to be made into medicines.
Duda's award-winning film unflinchingly documents the whole story the U.S. government and the state of Arkansas have tried to keep hidden from the world.
Click the photo of Kelly Duda at work to order your own copy of
Click the photo of Kelly Duda at work to visit the
Please help spread the word about this important film,
"Factor 8: The Arkansas Prison Blood Scandal"
Factor 8 Documentary website
along with the urls to the linked pages.
During the final two weeks of Bud's dying he was in a coma. Since
we were not notified of his condition until he was already in the coma, Bud never got to say his good-byes.
Sue and I camped out in the Intensive Care Waiting Room at Jefferson Regional Medical Center from the day we got there until Bud died. We slept in sleeping bags in the corner of the room during our brief periods of rest. Mom and Dad Jones, and Dad and our step-mother, June returned to their motel rooms late each night to sleep for a few hours.
Judith, one of the sweet and compassionate nurses we'd all come to love had been on duty that evening. She stood watching with great sympathy as I tucked the warmed blanket around Bud's feet. I could sense that she wanted so much to do or say something to make things better, and was sad that she couldn't. She gently touched his hand and said, "he's in the deepest coma now. He can't even hear you any more. His spirit is here in the room with us." She stood silently with us for a few more moments, then patted me on the shoulder and closed the door softly behind her as she resumed her position on the other side of the window that looked into his room.
The nurse who had just come on duty a few minutes before
stepped into the room and said, "Just let me check these connections; make
sure we didn't kick a wire loose." He checked the connections, turned off the alarm, and left the room.
The monitor was quiet, but the respirator still pumped air into Bud's dead lungs rhythmically as Sue and I cried unconsolably, and hugged our dead brother.
After an interminable length of time, I remembered that Mama and Dad Jones were trying to get a little rest in the sleeping bags in the waiting room, and didn't even know yet that Bud was gone. I tried repeatedly to remove Sue from atop Bud where she lay prostrate with grief, but she seemed not to be aware of me. I didn't know what to do in this strange and agonizing new world without Bud. I ran sobbing down the hall to throw myself into my mother's arms and tell her that her only son was dead.
That's how my baby brother, Bud Tant died.
And how many others? How many other people did the ADC cause to become infected with this devastating disease through direct infusion into their bodies of tainted Arkansas prisoner plasma products? How many have been, and WILL YET BE contaminated secondarily through contact with someone who received the plasma, or someone who has come into contact with them?
The true numbers of sick and dead will never be known by anyone but God. The crimes and sins of the Arkansas Department of Correction cannot even be calculated by men, since people yet unborn will sicken and die decades or even centuries in the future as a direct result of the plague visited on the planet by William Jefferson Clinton, Leonard Dunn, Larry Norris, John Byus and their minions. And yet those amoral monsters continue to prosper from their evil acts, which have caused and will continue to visit untold suffering, death and grief on innocent people all over the world.
Is that acceptable to you? Officials and blood brokers all over the world have already gone to prison for their part in the distribution of tainted plasma into their countries, while those responsible for KNOWINGLY AND DELIBERATELY making it available for sale continue to prosper and increase their power! Why won't the U.S. media address this American-made atrocity that the rest of the world has known about for years? Is that the way we do things in America?
I say, "NO!" It's time for America to demand the the U.S. Justice Department mount a full-scale investigation into the atrocity commited by the Arkansas Department of Correction in their dealings in the human plasma market. I implore you to write to your U.S. Senators, Congressional Representatives, the FBI and the U.S. Justice Department and demand that they implement an investigation into this heinous crime.
It's time for the evil people responsible for this international cold-blooded, murder-for- money-and-power scam to face justice and look at the world from the other side of the bars.
STAND UP AND DEMAND JUSTICE, AMERICA!! THE NEXT VICTIM OF THE ARKANSAS DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTION COULD BE YOU OR SOMEONE YOU LOVE! THE WHOLE WORLD HAS BEEN TOUCHED AND ENDANGERED BY THE DARK AND EVIL WORLD OF THE ARKANSAS DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTION. UNTOLD MILLIONS OF OTHERS WILL DIE AS BUD DID BECAUSE OF THE GREED AND AMBITION OF A FEW EVIL MEN. DEMAND THAT THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE INVESTIGATE THIS ATROCITY AND BRING TO JUSTICE THOSE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE SELLING OF SLOW, TORTUROUS DEATH TO PEOPLE ALL OVER THE WORLD!
Sue and I sat talking in the waiting room or freezing down on the
patio where we tried vainly to keep warm with hot chocolate or espresso
from the vending machine. We sat huddled in the corner smoking cigarettes
and trying to convince ourselves and the other that when we saw Bud next
we would see an improvement. Sometimes we were filled with hope and
sometimes with dispair; always we were cold.
We would call the
nurse's station every hour or so throughout the night and beg to be
allowed to come back for a few minutes and be with Bud. Sometimes they let us, and other times they were too busy, or had some emergency occurring. We
sat in the Prayer Room praying and crying, and took turns falling apart
while the other held us up.
Our parents had a very hard time
watching Bud lay there with his unconscious, open eyes rolling around in
his head like marbles while the respirator breathed for him and another
piece of equipment drained the bloody fluid from his lungs in astonishing
volumes, but Sue and I could not stay away. We could not let him
die alone or with strangers around him. We prayed for a miracle, but were
determined that if he died it would be with our arms around him and
holding his hand. He'd been alone too long; we would not let him die
outside our circle of love.
During the hours I stood at Bud's
bedside watching his agonizing death and feeling as though my heart was
being ripped from my chest, I realized that all over the world other
people would die that same gruesome death, and those who loved them would
stand in pools of their blood as they died. I became angry! Most of those
so cruelly and inhumanely cursed by the ADC plasma put into their bodies
would never even know why this was happening to them. But I knew! I vowed
to Bud and to God that I would see to it that those who had brought the horror of Bud's death onto him through the denial of medical care, and to others through his tainted plasma would be exposed before the world and made to pay the price for their crimes.
During the final 14 hours of Bud's life he began to "bleed out", from every opening of his body and from his very
pores. The doctor assured us that he would die sometime that day. Sue and
I left him for only brief moments during those final hours.
We had the TV tuned to a station which only played music. It was as though every song they played that night spoke to us and our grief; "Do You Believe In Life After Love?"; "In the Arms of the Angels"; "Daniel"; "He Ain't Heavy". Song after song wrenched our hearts and filled us with awe,as blood seeped continually from Bud's body.
The nurses had been very concerned about Sue's and my safety, as we refused to wear rubber gloves, and continually stroked, massaged and kissed him freely. Sue and I took turns leaning over Bud and resting our cheeks lightly against his forehead while the other held his hand or massaged lotion into his feet.
As the blankets covering Bud began to become saturated with his blood, the nurses would pile more blankets on top of his swiftly-cooling body to try to prevent Sue's and my clothes from becoming soaked, too. As the blankets nearest his body and under him became
saturated, his blood began to drip onto the floor around our feet. From
time-to-time someone would come in and mop the floor, but blood continued
to drip onto it even as it was mopped.
So it was that Sue and I
stood in pools of our only brother's blood as his life ebbed away. We
watched the monitors as they automatically measured his vital statistics
every few minutes. We would hold our breath until the numbers were set, and
rode a dizzying roller coaster of relief or dispair as the numbers remained
stable or dropped.
Bud's body grew colder and colder as his blood
pressure continued to drop, and his blood continued to pool at our feet.
His feet in particular were as cold as ice, so I asked a nurse for a warm
blanket. She brought one and I tucked it around his feet in a vain attempt
to warm him.
Once his top blood pressure readings hit the 50s the numbers began to plummet. In a blinding flash I believed for the first time that it was
really going to happen - Buddy was actually going to die - right then!
I cried, "Oh, my God, Sue! It's really going to happen!", as I was gripped by unbearable paroxyms of grief. Sue sobbed and held Bud tighter
as I wailed, "Good-bye, baby brother", and the monitor began to scream its alarm.
ROBERT BUFORD TANT, JR. (BUDDY/BUD)
OCTOBER 30, 1947
to
MARCH 14, 1999
BUDDY TANT - 1951
Linda & Buddy on Grandpa Charlie's mule - 1952
BUDDY TANT - FIRST GRADE
BUDDY TANT - SECOND GRADE
BUDDY TANT - THIRD GRADE
Susie, Buddy & Linda
Easter 1955
BUDDY TANT - FOURTH GRADE
BUDDY TANT - FIFTH GRADE
LINDA, BUDDY HOLDING CARY McELROY, & SUE - 1958
BUDDY TANT - 6TH GRADE - LITTLE LEAGUE STAR
BUDDY & MAMA OUTSIDE OUR HOUSE AT NAS WHIDBEY ISLAND, WA - 1958
BUDDY TANT - EIGHTH GRADE
BUDDY TANT - 9th Grade
BUDDY TANT - BLUE ANGELS - PONY LEAGUE STAR
POINT MUGU, CA JUNIOR LEAGUE RANGERS - 1962 ROBERT TANT, SR. (BOB), STANDING FAR LEFT - ROBERT TANT JR., (BUDDY) KNEELING FRONT ROW FAR RIGHT
BUDDY WAS ALWAYS CLOWNING AROUND, AND HE WAS SO GENUINELY FUNNY AND CHARMING THAT WHEN SCHOOL PHOTOS WERE TAKEN FOR HIS 11TH GRADE CLASS, THEY LET HIM HAVE TWO PHOTOS TAKEN - THIS ONE, IN SOME GIRL'S GLASSES AND HIS VERY OWN MICKEY MOUSE EARS, AND THE ONE BELOW.
POINT MUGU, CA - 1962 -
WHEREVER BUD WAS, THE GIRLS WERE SURE TO FOLLOW
KAREN KERR WAS THE LOVE OF BUD'S LIFE. SHE WAS ALWAYS A HOMECOMING PRINCESS, AND HE WAS ALWAYS HER ESCORT.
HUENEME HIGH SCHOOL, OXNARD, CA - HOMECOMING DANCE 1961
BUD STANDING FRONT ROW CENTER
MARINE
CORPS BOOT CAMP
SAN DIEGO, CA
1966
LINDA, BUD AND SUE OUTSIDE MOM'S
NORTH
LITTLE ROCK, AR
1977
LINDA, BUD & SUE
SUMMER
1986
CUMMINS UNIT CLERK - JANUARY 1989
MOM & BUD
MOTHER'S DAY
1995
MINERAL CEMETERY - BUD'S GRAVE IS IN THE FOREGROUND
BUD'S HEADSTONE
THE DEATH OF A CUMMINS INMATE FROM UNTREATED HEPATITIS AND BEATINGS
By Linda Tant Miller
May 3, 2000
This heartbreaking original article is written especially for Free Republic.
Linda Miller tells how her brother, Bud Tant, died of neglect and cruelty in
Arkansas's infamous Cummins prison farm. Tant had two strains of hepatitis.
He didn't know that, but prison officials did -- and they encouraged him to
donate infected blood plasma for almost ten years.
In December, 1984, my brother, Bud Tant, robbed a bank in North Little Rock, Arkansas and compounded the crime by shooting at the police who arrested him. His guilt was plain. I will not attempt to excuse his crime nor discount the fact that he had to pay his debt to society for it, behind bars.
But Bud was our family's only son and brother. However shocked and sad
we were at what he had done, we loved him. He was handsome, intelligent,
charming, funny, kind and so soft-hearted that I still can't get an image of
him doing what I know he did. Our dad was in the Navy and raised us to be
decent, responsible and patriotic. Bud somehow became addicted to drugs
later on. It destroyed his moral standards and in the end, his life.
My mother and step-father hired a high-priced lawyer named John Achor to
represent Bud. On this man's advice, Bud pled guilty in a "plea bargain" --
yet received a sentence of life plus 80 years, the maximum sentence
possible. It turned out that his attorney and the judge who sentenced him
were involved in a "bleed 'em and plead 'em" scam which made a lot of money
for the lawyers and judges involved in it, while selling defendants "down
the river." Still, Bud had committed the crime and we all agreed that he had
to pay the penalty. None of us knew the price we would all have to pay for
his crime.
In 1995, after years of health problems, Bud was diagnosed with
Hepatitis B and C at a university hospital in Arkansas. He was told that
treatment with Interferon was necessary to save his life, and that a shunt
would be surgically implanted in his body for administration of the drug.
When he learned of his diseases Bud called me, obviously frightened about
what lay ahead of him. I was scared too and cried. He had to beg me to stop
and "remember where I'm at," because my hysteria was causing him to lose
control of his emotions.
Horrified as I was at the prospect of him undergoing such serious
health problems and medical treatment, I am grateful that we didn't know the
whole truth then: that he would be left to die without any treatment at all.
We did not know that he would be routinely beaten and kicked by guards and
medical staff while he was dying.
In 1997 Dad and I went to Arkansas to try to get treatment for Bud.
John Byus, the Medical Administrator of the Arkansas Department of
Correction, told us that Bud had had Hepatitis B and C when he first entered
the ADC. I didn't say anything because I knew Byus had just made an
appalling admission. During his time at Cummins Prison Farm, Bud had been
permitted to donate blood plasma at every draw -- infected plasma. And they
knew he was infected.
The "bleeds" were frequent. Unlike whole blood, plasma can be safely
drawn once or twice a week. A politically-connected company had for years
run a plasma program at Cummins. Prisoners could earn a few dollars in
prison commissary scrip for each unit, but the company and the prison system
got $50 a unit or more for the plasma, and made millions. Accordingly,
officials pushed inmates hard to donate blood plasma. Bud always obliged.
The prison hadn't told Bud or any of us that he had these viruses. This
failure placed all of us -- including my grandson whom I took to visit him
as an infant -- at risk of infection. I was outraged!
Our whole family managed to visit Bud several times a year as his
health continued to decline. He looked like a yellow scarecrow. His stomach
bloated as though he was pregnant. His eyes were sunken and ringed with red
and black circles. At one time his genitals were so swollen it looked like
he had a football in his pants. He said that when he sat on the toilet his
testicles touched the water. He was provided Tylenol for his pain.
About three weeks before he died, Bud told Dad during a phone
conversation that he had fallen and when he was unable to rise on command a
guard had begun to assault him. Dad can't remember if Bud said the guard hit
or kicked him in the side, but Bud said he thought some of his ribs were
broken.
Two inmates have since told me that the week after this assault Bud was
taken to the nurse's station in a wheelchair, in extreme respiratory
distress and shaking violently. After a period of time during which he was
ignored by the nurses gossiping at the desk, and upon prompting by
prisoners, Bud was provided a tank of oxygen. After he had breathed the
oxygen for a while, one of the nurses handed him a pill with a glass of
juice. While trying to drink the juice he spilled some because he was still
shaking violently. The nurse hit him in the head and said, "I wish this one
would hurry up and die and get it over with. He's a pain in the ass!"
A week later Bud was taken to Jefferson Regional Hospital to have fluid
drained from his lungs. Because of his weak condition, the doctor who cared
for him refused to release him back to the prison right away (the usual
course of action). Bud had pneumonia, fungus in his branchial tubes,
multiple bruises, injuries to the fingers on his left hand and a broken rib!
The procedure to remove the fluid from his lungs was done on Wednesday, but
there was little more that anyone could do. By Monday Bud was in a coma. On
March 14, despite outstanding care by the wonderful staff of that hospital,
with our sister Sue and me at his side, Bud died.
Sue and I lived in the ICU waiting room for the last two weeks of Bud's
life. The rest of the family was there all day and late into every night,
but Sue and I slept on sleeping bags in the corner of the room and left only
long enough to shower and change clothes. The staff were wonderfully kind.
Two of the nurses who cared for Bud came into the waiting room at the end of
their shifts and visited and cried with us. His doctor was obviously angry
with the prison, promising that if Bud survived he would keep him in the
hospital until an Act 290 release (a procedure to release prisoners with a
terminal illness) was completed. We were numbly grateful for their
compassion, and so grief-stricken that we didn't at that time comprehend
that there was more to their kindness than met the eye. They knew far more
than we did about what had happened to Bud.
Recently one of the ICU RNs who had cared for Bud as he was dying found
my web site and left me a message. We began a communication which has
enlightened me about some of what my brother endured at the hands of the ADC
as he was dying.
Here is text from a couple of letters I received from this nurse who
witnesses suffering and death as a regular part of her job and yet is
haunted by my brother's agony:
"I remember asking Bud about his history (for our admission records)
and he kept repeating that those guards are beating him. He had bruises and
was crying "please help me." I felt so helpless. I really did. I wasn't sure
what I was supposed to do. There is a thin frail man, bruised, obviously
hurting, and I didn't know what to do. I felt so bad because I knew if he
got better enough to go back, what else would happen? He also complained of
one of his legs hurting."
"I also remember Bud saying they knocked him out of his wheelchair and
the guard demanded he get up off the floor and he said he couldn't. The
guard began yelling and hitting him and he said his left arm got pinned
against the wheelchair somehow. He said the guard started kicking him. He
said he kept requesting medical attention, but they did not act very anxious
to fulfill his request. I wonder if he was requesting medical attention
before that incident took place, or some time after? He had bruises on his
left arm and was 'guarding' his trunk area around his chest/abdominal area.
Oh, and he had fingers on his left hand that appeared to have been injured.
He kept begging for help and repeating that they were beating him. He said
he was hurting. I could tell he was very sick. That was what I recall the
most about his first few days."
So this is the "medical care" that the state of Arkansas provides for
the dying prisoners in its custody, instead of permitting them to go home to
their families and die in dignity. I want to know if it can possibly be
morally acceptable to anyone in the whole world that "people" who beat and
abuse a dying man are paid wages out of taxpayers' funds?
Here is a link to a photo of Bud.
Bud's emaciated body weighed 75 lbs when we buried him. Who could beat
and kick a defenseless, dying man?
I wrote a letter to Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee and all state
legislators and enclosed the information provided here. I asked Governor
Huckabee for an appointment to speak with him. I've tried on many occasions,
only to be told each and every time that he was "unavailable." This time I
told him I will be in Arkansas from June 15 until whenever he can see me. I
received a reply from Teena Watkins of his office that he is not available
to see me in June, July or August. I wrote back and told them that I will
make myself available at his convenience, even travel from Washington state
to Arkansas for an appointment. I have not received a reply.
I challenge, I IMPLORE every Arkansas State Legislator to go to the
Diagnostic Unit. Root out this cancer. Demand an accounting from these
"medical professionals" of their criminal actions against a dying man.
Somebody, please find out who these guards and "nurses" are who abuse
helpless and dying human beings. They belong on the other side of the bars!
Because of the greed and corruption of the Arkansas good ol' boys and
politicians, people all over the world will continue to die as Bud did. The
state of Arkansas shipped his plasma to be made into medicines, knowing that
Bud and other inmates were infected with deadly and incurable viruses. The
World Health Organization estimates that one million people worldwide were
directly infected due to the prison plasma program. But the true toll will
just get higher and higher. Secondary infections will continue until the end
of human existence, unless science finds cures or vaccines for the AIDS and
hepatitis spread by the Arkansas Department of Correction. People whose
grandparents are not yet born will die as a result of this unconscionable
and criminal scheme in Arkansas.
On July 8, 2005 my precious baby sister, Sue went to join our brother, Bud. She died suddenly and unexpectedly of an accute asthma attack which resulted in massive heart failure. She was only 55. She lies in the Mineral Cemetery on Bud's left and I will one day lay on his right, with my husband on my right. Our mother, who had spent the night at Sue's house, found her body when she awoke early that morning in response to one of Sue's dogs running in and jumping on Mom's bed. It was too late to save Sue.
Sue's loss has wounded Mom, Dad and me more than I have words to say. Until the day I lie with my siblings, I will continue to try to understand why I, our parents' first born had to survive both my brother and my sister.
Sue was a beautiful and exceptional person, and I plan to create a page for her memory on this site as soon as my raw heart will permit.
