Whitney Rodgers
6-1-1984 to 5-30-2003
Whitney Rodgers, 18 of Amarillo died Friday May 30, 2003 at Lubbock.
Funeral services will be at 3:00 PM Wednesday at Kingswood United Methodist Church with Terry Tamplen, pastor, officiating. Interment will be at Memory Gardens Cemetery in Amarillo. Arrangements are by Rector Funeral Home 2800 S. Osage St.
Miss Rodgers was born in June 1, 1984 to Marla Lockhart and Gary Rodgers in Amarillo. She attended Amarillo High School where she was on the varsity swim team, was a member of the national honor society, and graduated in 2002 in the top 15% of her class. She was in Girl Scout Troop #85 from kindergarten through her senior year. Whitney was a theatre major at Amarillo College where she recently received a Regents Achievement Honor.
She was a member of Kingswood United Methodist Church. She loved her many friends, traveling, and making others smile.
She was preceded in death by her grandmother, Mary Lockhart in 2000.
Survivors include her mother, Marla Lockhart of Amarillo; Her father, Gary Rodgers of Amarillo; 2 brothers Luke Thomason and wife Lisa, and their children, Jatin and Lucus, and Matthew Thomason and wife Krissy and their children, Tyler, and Brett all of Amarillo; her grandparents, Mr. & Mrs. H.G. Lockhart of Amarillo, Emmitt Rodgers of Pawnee, OK, and Erline Murray of Amarillo; Her great-grandmother, Anna Walker of Amarillo; and many aunts, uncles, cousins, & loving friends.
Buckle Up!
Dear Marla and Family:
Please accept my deepest sympathy in the recent loss of you daughter, Whitney. Your strength and courage in thinking of others during this painful time are a tribute to you and to Whitney's memory. It is my hope that your thougtfulness will help to ease some of your pain and lonliness, and that this information may bring you and your family some sense of peace and comfort, if only a little.
Whitney was able to donate her liver, pancreas and both kidneys for transplant. The gift of her liver went to a 56yr old female fr Houston. She is single and has 2 children. She has been waiting for this precious gift of life since January of this year. She is doing great at this time, but did have some difficulty following surgery. The gift of her pancreas went to a 34 yr old male who suffered from severe diabetes. He works as a network technician in Wisconsin. He is doing wonderful after his transplant and is now free from the numerous infections and blood sugar testing. Whitney's right kidney went to a 55 yr old female in Ohio. This was a perfect match with her kidney! She had been on the waiting list since the beginning of May. She is married and has one son. She enjoys gardening, needlepoint and reading. Her kidney function is doing awesome, and she is so happy that she no longer is tied to the dialysis machine and can enjoy her life now. The left kidney went to a 48 yr old man from Hobbs, NM. He is married with 4 children. He had been on the waiting list since the beginning of March, and is happy to be free of the dialysis machines. All of the recipients are out of the hospital and doing very well all because of Whitney's generous "Gift of Life". Unfortunately, the tissues were unable to be recovered due to her laceration on her left knee; it was beginning to have and infection in that wound, which was discovered in the operating room.
You, along with the rest of the family, were able to help so many people at such a difficult time in your lives. While no words of mine can ease your loss, I do hope that hearing about these individuals may give you some peace. On behalf of the recipents and their families, I extend to you deep sympathy and overwhelming gratitude for your decision to donate. After meeting all of you, it is easy to see the love and compassion that extended into this most precious gift of life. Thank you for allowing me the honor to be with you and your family through this very rough time. My prayers are with you, and my heart goes out to you and your family. Please know that Whitney and her legacy are living on in some very special people.
At a certain moment a doctor will determine
that my brain has ceased to function and that
for all intenets and purposes, my life has stopped.
When that happens, do not attmept to instill
artificial life into my body by the use of a machine.
And don't call this my 'deathbed.' Call it my 'bed of
life,' and let my body be taken from it to help others
lead fuller lives. Give my sight to a man who has never
seen a sunrise, a baby's face or love in the eyes of a
woman. Give my heart to a person whose own heart
has caused nothing but endless days of pain. Give my
blood to the teen-ager who has been pulled from the
wreckage of his car, so that he might live to see his
grandchildren play. Give my kidneys to one who
depends on a machine to exist from week to week.
Take my bones, every muscle, every fiber and nerve in
my body and find a way to make a crippled child walk.
Explore every corner of my brain. Take my cells,
if necessary, and let them grow so that someday a
speechless boy will shout at thecrack of a bat and a
deaf girl will hear the sound of rain against her windows.
If you must bury something, let it be my faults, my
weaknesses, and all prejudice against my fellowman.
Give my soul to God. If by chance you wish to remember
me, do it with a kind deed or word to someone who needs
you.If you do all I have asked for, I will live forever.
-Robert N. Test-
