Obituary of Juanita Brooks

Juanita Loree Huckaby Brooks was born June 26, 1929 in Springfield Colorado, the youngest daughter of Luther & Susie Huckaby. Her sister Jane Savage said Dr. D.D. Hamilton pulled her out of his black doctor's bag. She grew up in Springfield during the 1930's Dust Bowl.
She was married to Charles Brooks on August 20, 1948 in Red River, New Mexico. They set up home on the farm south of Vilas. Their first child, Charles Robert "Bob" was born in Lamar, CO. Sharon Kay "Shae" was born in Walsh three years later. In the early fifties the family moved to Colorado Springs to get specialized medical assistance for Bob. Kent Douglas "The kid without a permanent nickname" was born in Colorado Springs. Many special lifetime friendships were established during those years. Charles, Juanita and Kent returned to Baca County in December 1973. From that time until late into her 70's she provided accounting and tax preparation services for people throughout Baca County. She also found time to garden, can garden produce, and have a few corn shucking parties at the nephews farms. There was almost always a puzzle out on a table for whoever happened by. She was energetic enough to keep up with Kent and his buddies, have campouts on the trampoline with the grandkids, and run a restaurant for a short time with her sister-in-law Bernice and Nell Thompson. Juanita's great niece Ginger Brooks Hartman remembers visiting the restaurant one night when Juanita and Bernice cranked up the jukebox, hooked elbows and skipped and danced around like little girls. Grandson Mike Madone recalls she had grit, defined by Webster as a firmness of spirit & mind and a spirit of courage in the face of hardship or danger, which is a testament many have confirmed in various ways. Many people remember Juanita saying "might as well laugh as cry" in spite of many challenges and hardships.
During her final years, Sharon and Kent moved their mother from her home in Springfield Colorado into the assisted living facility in Walsh, then to the Long Term Care facility in Springfield and then on to the attached Alzheimer facility. God Bless all the wonderful people with servants hearts who work in each of those places. She departed this life July 20, 2014 at the Springfield Colorado Hospital at age 85 years and 25 days. She has moved Home.
She was preceded in death by husband Charles, son Bob, parents Luther and Suzie Huckaby, son-in-law John Madone, and sister Gertrude Grimm. She is survived by daughter Sharon Madone and her children Rocco, wife Amanda and great grandson Mason, Michael and fiancee Jill Polin all of Canon City Colorado, Jillian Sciacca and husband Jack of Villa Grove Colorado, Son Kent, wife Heidi and their children Alexis, Morgan, Kirsten, Colin and Cale, all of Casper WY. Also surviving is sister Jane Savage of Springfield, a host of family, friends and former tax customers.

A Son's Reflections
In the process of moving to the final stages of life you end up talking and thinking about a lot of important things. To get to the point you do end up talking about life and death and the entire circle of life. I love having grown up in Baca County, an agricultural environment by any measure. Someone once said,
"Farmers understand life and death and when we lose our agrarian roots we will no longer understand life and death."
I once heard this attributed to Thomas Jefferson but can find no evidence this is actually true. However, I have been around a lot of farmers so I tend to agree with this statement because they see life and death in one form or another every day. They certainly understand the cycle of life at least as well as anyone.

Everyone's cycle of life is different and my mother's cycle of life is done. From starting her time on earth in what I knew growing up as the parking lot of the Chuckwagon Cafe on south Main Street in Springfield Colorado ...to growing up in the heart of the 1930's Dust Bowl...to marrying my dad, Charles Brooks, and living in the sandy country south of Vilas Colorado...to Colorado Springs where they moved to doctor my brother Bob who had Cerebral Palsy...to Springfield again where she ended up living in a house one block west of where she was born...and finally to the end of her time on earth in the Springfield Hospital, at approximately 10pm last Sunday night, July 20, 2014, just a few small town blocks from where she was born.
The pain is gone...the breaths that were coming harder and harder are no longer a challenge, her clear and sharp mind which was robbed by dementia is no longer confused. (You might ask me sometime about her staying up all night and conquering Rubik's Cube or about another occasion doing the same to figure out PacMan which was included in the Atari I got one time for Christmas).
Mom has gone home.
Thanks to all of you for your prayers and thoughts as many of you have been a part of all of this over the past few years and many more even further back in time. I specifically want to thank you for your prayers on Sunday July 20, 2104. I have said in a previous conversation that a praying people is a powerful thing. With your prayers she waited for Sharon and I to get here and I thank you all for that reprieve. Maybe that was a combination of prayer and grit. I believe you all were a part of that as I got to see her open her eyes and look at me one more time, an image I will always cherish. When I think about eighty five (85) years it sometimes seems like a long time but other times not so much. In James 4:13-17, James describes life as a mist:
13 Now listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money." 14 Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. 15 Instead, you ought to say, "If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that." 16 As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil.17 If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn't do it, it is sin for them.
I do pray we don't spend all our time worrying about tomorrow, carrying on business or making money and we do a better job of loving one another as it is written in John 13: 34 & 35 "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." I think my mom would like that from us all.