There would be no Tophour.com without Brian Davis. He was the founder of this site and is still our spiritual guru, even long after he handed off management of the site to the current bozos.
One reason Brian had to dump Toppy duties on our heads was the ongoing health battles of his wife, “TLMD, the Lovely Mrs. Davis,” or simply Heather. Her long fight ended last week and we all miss her dearly.
Brian asked that in her memory, we share her self-penned death notice as widely as possible. And we’re happy to do it, because the woman was funny as hell. (No, really – you thought Brian’s posts here were clever? He married up. Way up. We’re just saying.)
So we send our deepest condolences somewhere way out I-80 to Iowa and the Davis and Neal families as we share Heather’s farewell.
(PS – when she writes that “she tolerated her husband”? She really, truly did. Even the parts with all the boomboxes and airchecks. And that’s a rare thing indeed.)
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Heather Lynn Davis told this world to get lost on Friday, February 16, 2018.
She was born on July 28, 1973, and adopted shortly thereafter by Walter and Rose Neal. Turns out you really can choose your family. Upon realizing that she’d proven that piece of conventional wisdom wrong, she decided to make proving the world wrong her life’s goal.
Well, that and becoming Mrs. Donnie Wahlberg. You can’t always get what you want.
She graduated from Wahlert High School and Northeast Iowa Community College. In a moment of apparent weakness, she married Brian Davis on April 17, 2004, and upon realizing her mistake, adopted three fur babies of her own: Bob, Gordon and Chuck.
She liked musicals, bad movies and TV procedurals. She loved to cross stitch and read. She was into Chinese food, wine and her mom’s pie. She liked making the house look like Santa threw up each December. In much the same way some people buy underwear, she bought purses. She worked in a bakery but still liked donuts. She went to Mexico. She went to Hawaii. She went to Spain. (She did not go to Oklahoma). Like many kids her age, she became obsessed with New Kids On The Block and Janet Jackson. Unlike many kids her age, she got to meet them, and the aforementioned Donnie Wahlberg palmed her head like a basketball. It was difficult to get her to wash her face after that. She transcribed doctors’ notes at a mental health clinic, ran the art department for a craft store and liked the people at her cancer center so much, she went to work there.
Yeah, she had cancer — three times, and two of those times, she wrestled it to the ground, gave it a noogie and made it cry “uncle.” She also had two heart transplants and a kidney transplant. She spent entire years of her life in hospital rooms, convalescent areas and doctor waiting rooms. She did not complain. Much.
And she loved The Lion King. Like, really loved it. Like, had multiple copies and pretty much every tchotchke that had a Simba on it. (She also loved the word “tchotchke”).
Heather loved her family, and just about everyone became family. She fiercely loved her parents. She adored her brother Phillip, his wife Crystal and their children and grandchildren. (Especially the grandchildren). She loved her in-laws, Kim and Laura Davis, her sisters-in-law, Amy, Sara, Beth, Katherine, Lizzie, Elizabeth’s husband Dustin and their boy, Sterling. She treasured the women who became her sisters, Julie, Lora, Shannon and Tina, their husbands and children.
She loved and missed those who went before her: her grandparents, Horacio and Rose Gonzales and Wesley and Nellie Neal; many aunts and uncles; and her Baby Gordon.
She admired and was grateful to her doctors, nurses and staff at Finley Hospital, the Mayo Clinic (Transplantation at Mayo Clinic), and Gift of Life Transplant House in Rochester, Minnesota.
She tolerated her husband.
In keeping with her wishes, there will be no visitation or services. Those things creeped her out.
One last thing: Heather apologizes for referring to herself in the third person in this obituary.
