Wendy Jennifer Leigh was one of the sweetest
people you ever could of met. And I feel it is
time to tell her story.
On January 18, 1945, Wendy Jennifer King was born
to Elmo and Ollie King in Winchester, England.
Elmo was in the United States Army and Ollie was an
english citizen. They met in a pub and courted for awhile
and then were married on March 8, 1944. Wendy
was the only child of these two wonderful people.
When Wendy was about 13 months old she finally hit
american soil in Oklahoma of all places
(sorry had to have some humor somewhere).
Elmo remained in the army all of Wendy's
school years so she moved from place to place.
They lived in England, Germany, parts of Oklahoma,
Texas, and California that I know for sure.
She finally graduated form high school in 1963 in
Wetherford, Oklahoma.
Sometime later she met Stewart Allen Leigh and
married him on May 24, 1967, in Tulsa, Oklahoma
(again with that state).
On August 11, 1969, they had a beautiful baby girl
(also an only child),
Tabatha Pippa Leigh (me of course, LOL).
On February 27, 1970, they were divorced.
Sometime around 1972 or 1973 Elmo, Ollie, Wendy,
and Tabatha moved to West Sacramento, California.
During the next 25 years there where up and downs
as with any family and I won't go into details
about them. But she was active with Girl Scouts,
Girls Softball with her daughter and became
involved with tutoring and the Special Olympiacs
after her daughter married and left home.
Now for the beginning of the real story.
In August of 1997, Wendy found lumps in her breast
went to the doctor and found that it was cancer.
I don't know about anyone else but I feel at that
time Wendy was actually already in what they call
stage four (the worse stage).
The reason I think that is when 8 out of the 9
lymphnoids had cancer in them that isn't good.
She went through all of the chemo and
radiation as any normal person diagnosised with
cancer would and we thought we had nipped
in the butt. We were wrong! In May of 1999,
cancer again but this time it went to the motor
section of her brain. It was removed and again she
went through the chemo. In July they ran some more
test and found cancer cells in the spine.
During this time she was bed-ridden and the
doctors couldn't figure out why exactly.
The week of her last chemo, Wendy started
having seizures.
The last of chemo was on the 27th of September,
the next day she had a blood transfusion,
and the day after that was the beginning of the end.
Wendy had a seizure and never recovered from it.
On Octorber 15th she passed away.
She left behind her loving parents,
her daughter and son-in-law,
three beautiful grandchildren,
and wonderful friends.
She will truly be missed by all of us
each in a different way.
I for one will miss the guidance a mom would
give her child and the love she always gave me.
But I will especially miss the smiles,
hugs, her voice, and her sense of humor.
