I’ve spent over a week trying to find words about the loss of Teri Scheinzeit, but they’re still not quite finding their way through. I’ll likely have to sit with this one a while longer.
For those who didn’t know Teri, she was one of the brightest lights this world has ever known. She was a survivor of childhood cancer for over 60 years – diagnosed when she was only 6. She spent her life in and out of the hospital, and always fought back into a miracle of a recovery. And she ALWAYS stayed positive and hilariously funny and deeply interested in everyone else. I told her I knew positive attitudes weren’t a normal setting for us humans in the face of so many challenges, and that it was a choice she made and a daily workout. Teri chose happy. It was the title of her brilliant musical memoir that she finished only a few months ago. If you haven’t listened to it, I couldn’t recommend anything more. An hour of inspiring storytelling and her flawless songs about her life as a cancer survivor. I’m so proud of her for what she created and left to the world.
Teri come into my life in May of 2015 when she signed up for my Italy Retreat with Mary Gauthier. She was in the hospital in the weeks before the trip and the doctors all told her she shouldn’t travel – until one finally told her that if she wasn’t going to live her life, then what was the point. So she chose happy and made the trip to Tuscany – and it was life-changing. For all of us. We watched the color of her skin change and her health come back in days, she ate everything she wanted, and the smile never left her face. Or the rest of ours, for that matter. Then the following year she came to Scotland with us on Beth Nielsen Chapman’s retreat – laughing and dancing and eating and singing around a castle for a solid week. And there were more than a dozen other Nashville trips she made over the past few years for these workshops, happy reunions all.
The last couple of weeks of her life were back in the hospital with a fluke infection that got to her compromised lungs. Her husband Stuart was by her side and texting daily updates, up and down, hope and fear. Jonatha Brooke, who’d been so instrumental in helping her finish her musical memoir, was with me in Nashville for a workshop and so every morning we were sending little video messages before heading to class, and Teri was determined to get better so she could get to Nashville in a few weeks to be with her buddies for Emily Saliers’ workshop. There was still the chance she would pull through like she’d done so many times before, and we’d be laughing and singing again. But then we got the gut punch of news on that Friday night, and I’m not sure the reality of the loss has even set in yet. Or maybe it’s just that Teri’s bright light and shining spirit aren’t capable of being dimmed. Ever. So just the thought of her brings comfort in the puddle of tears.
Teri was so easy to love. She found delight in everything: Cheese? Delightful. Doing the laundry? Nothing better. A Las Paletas popsicle? OMG. And don’t even get her started on rice pudding. From her hospital bed only a couple of days before she died she wrote “Teri’s 10 Tips for Living,” and her designer friend made it into an image so she could email us.
To all of Teri’s friends who loved her, know that I’m holding you in my heart. She made us and the world better, and I know each one of us is forever grateful to have been in the glow of her sweet smile and touched by her remarkable spirit. Rest easy and fly gently, our beautiful songbird. You were so loved.
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