Final Expenses for Cheryl Shirk

Dear Friends and Family,

Cheryl Shirk (nee Gibbs) passed away suddenly and unexpectedly in the early hours of Tuesday, December 27, 2022. We set up this fundraiser to assist her family in providing for Cheryl's final arrangements.

Cheryl, like the fictional Corporal Klinger on MASH, was born in Toledo, Ohio.

While you may be surprised for me to mention Klinger in a final expenses fundraising appeal, I think Cheryl would approve, because Cheryl loved to make wry observations and wisecracks, and she did love to laugh.

Although Toledo was her hometown, Cheryl made Jacksonville, North Carolina her last home. Having experienced a series of health difficulties, Cheryl had moved into her son's home earlier this year.

Terri and I met Cheryl because her son, Joshua Shirk, and our daughter, Rosalie, fell in love and married. With them and with Cheryl, we enjoyed the celebrations of life moments ... births and birthdays ... anniversaries and holidays. And the celebrating of these moments and thousands of moments more, of daily life and family, are now frozen in our memories like a gallery of modern still life paintings.

Those times naturally resulted in our acquaintance.

But Cheryl and Terri are both GRANDmothers, and in their cases, they shared duties watching their shared grandkids, Skyler, Adam, Liam, Marley, and Mikey for Josh and Rosalie while they were at work.

Regularly sharing daycare of family members, Terri and I spent lots more time with Cheryl, cooperating in the task of "granding" the children.

Cheryl did not own a car during the time we knew her.

That left her dependent on others for transport to appointments at the VA Clinic in Jacksonville and other local medical offices. Terri and I both enjoyed being able to help Cheryl get to her various appointments and, while out and about, to her various shopping spots.

Cheryl's eligibility for care at the VA Clinic reflected her own, prior honorable service in the United States Navy. It was in the U.S. Navy that Cheryl met her future husband, the late Michael Charles Shirk. And, having met in the Navy, she did as Navy wives often do, she brought a son into the world, Joshua Shirk, to complete their family.

Cheryl, who some knew as Red Sophie, understood the struggles of family life exacerbated by living on the military's pay and benefits, and the struggles of separation and loneliness. She had, with her own struggles, empathy for others that led her, not simply to hope that others' lives could be blessed by care, but to work with individuals in the struggle for recovery and balance, and with those seeking to regain a healthy self-responsibility.

Cheryl's doggo, Lucy, is wandering around at her home, where she and Cheryl have lived this last year, and looking for her hero, her rescuer, Cheryl.

Lucy is emblematic of Cheryl's kindness and care; Lucy came to Cheryl out of a circumstance of severe neglect and abuse. Cheryl poured herself into giving Lucy a stable and secure home and winning her over to human companionship and decency.

These are exceeding difficult times.

Military service makes no one wealthy, except politicians and the defense industry. Cheryl, not anticipating this sudden circumstance, had not made any final arrangements. With this expense sudden and unexpected, we are asking whether you would show this family, Josh and Rosalie Shirk, and their grandkids, that you loved their Nanna Red as did they, that you appreciated her strength in the struggle, that you delighted in her devilish humor, that you care by making a donation in any amount that you can afford.

After having visited with local providers, it appears that to fulfill Cheryl's wish to be cremated, the family will need to raise approximately twenty five hundred dollars ($2500.00). That amount is subject to possible change based on receipt of itemized invoicing. What Josh and Rose promise, however, is that any amount you can donate will be used solely for the final expenses of Cheryl Shirk.