Lisa Orcutt Memorial Page

12/04/2023

I thought I’d take a moment to share an update on projects I’ve been doing for Lisa.

Around thanksgiving, I donated a few hundred dollars from Lisa’s retirement check to a local animal rescue organization housing and feeding stay animals in our county. We have no animal control, so this volunteer organization does it all. I’m afraid if Lisa had seen them, she would have rescued at least a few of their kittens.

This morning, I delivered four truckloads of new boxed toys, about six hundred total to our local extension office, for distribution to needy families for Christmas. These where toys Lisa had bought and stored in our Tallahassee warehouse, ones she had been donating to all the local causes for years. Two weeks ago, I pulled my trailer back to the mountains from Florida, loaded with the toys and so much more for distribution to those in need.

A few days prior, I donated a bunch of new clothes to a local organization set up in our Chamber of Commerce building that provides clothes and food to families in need in our county. Most of these were purchased with two of Lisa’s retirement checks, bulk purchases from Kohls, Walmart and Target. I also found five totes of new girl clothes with tags in the warehouse, and these are headed to the organization as well.

Two other retirement checks went to purchase new clothes that were built into emergency bags, containing underwear, socks, shirt and pants, and forty of those in various sizes are packaged and waiting for the Children’s advocacy center to come pickup. This in the Tennessee equivalent to Florida’s DCF, and responsible for abused and neglected children investigation and placement. This is Lisa’s second donation to this group, six months ago we delivered seven boxes of toys and games to them in McMinnville for placement in their offices.

Last Friday, I donated a tub full of new men’s dress shirts to the American Legion. From Lisa’s shelves at the warehouse, these shirts are being distributed by the Legion to homeless vets in the area, in part of a program where they are building Tiny houses next to their building to give them a place to stay.

Later today, I’m delivering 80+ new higher end Christmas Ornaments to our local old folks home, where each of the 70 residents will be given their own ornament to hang on their Christmas tree. Lisa loved Christmas ornaments, and the warehouse was filled with box after box. I thought she would appreciate sharing with these residents who are often forgotten during the holidays.

The warehouse also had many boxes of school supplies, and so last week I made arrangements to donate the supplies to the local Mennonite community school. This school is very basic, children only study up to 14 years of age, and it doesn’t get the support most public schools do.

I’m sure I’ve missed some of the projects, but you get an idea of what were doing.

12/19/2022

While I promised to keep everyone up to date, this part is kinda hard to do.

We got the preliminary autopsy report the other day, and it was much worse than anticipated. They found the tumor on her right kidney as reported, but they also found the cancer everywhere else, in most if not all he major organs and even on the brain. How she was functioning is still beyond me, but in the end, God needed her more than we did.

I'm sure she's busy organizing a heaven bazar sale, looking for bargains in St. Peters Square or playing like a Walmart greeter for all the dogs and cats entering the pearly gates, so I won't cry too much.

But, in keeping with her love of the Holidays, 329 elementary and middle school students out of a total of 501 students who would not have gotten a Christmas candy gram, are now scratching their heads wondering who LISA is who sent them the candy gram.

Small things like this help to keep her memory fresh.

12/07/2022

For those who were left wondering like me as to the cause of death, her official death certificate listed three causes. The sarcoma that we knew of, as well as Pneumonia and Sepsis. We still have an autopsy being performed, but this is what we know so far.

12/07/2022

A more recent picture shared of Lisa doing what she loved, hitting an estate sale.

11/11/2022

Delivery aid down to the Dominican Republic orphanage

11/11/2022

At Sophie's graduation

11/11/2022

11/10/2022

For those of you who were unaware, Lisa passed away on Thursday November 3, 2022, in the early afternoon. She entered heaven with our daughter Sophie and Lisa’s brother John at her side.

Lisa had been admitted to Tallahassee Memorial hospital earlier in the week with what she described as flu like symptoms, a virus she thought she may have brought back with her from a recent visit to Mayo Hospital in Jacksonville, Florida.

Sadly, she had gone to Mayo the weeks prior for tests and follow-up on a bruise that she discovered on her right side, after a recent trip for work.

That bruise would later be associated with an aggressive form of Sarcoma, a tumor that had attached itself to her right kidney. It had only been two weeks since she received the cancer diagnosis and we had hoped an early medical intervention would have been successful; but that was not the case.

At present, the family is not planning a funeral service as this was not what Lisa wanted. We are however collectively working toward a celebration of life or wake of sorts, to be held sometime early next year. It is our plan that it will be held in Tallahassee, probably in our Aunt Norma’s backyard, the same location as our wedding in 2001. I promise to provide updates on this as they develop, so that all who want to attend and share in our love of Lisa and her life may do so.

In the interim, we have decided to use Facebook as a portal to allow many of Lisa’s friends and family across the globe to post and share their fondest Lisa memories. It is my sincere hope that all of you will take advantage of this forum, that you will add your remembrances and celebrate a life taken from us much too soon.

We are, if nothing else, a collection of actions and interactions, shared pains and joys, pathways on a journey from birth to death. On Lisa’s Journey she was a loving mother, devoted wife, gracious in her giving and unwavering in her desire to improve upon the lives of others. These are some of my memories, what are yours?