Maria Edith Lopez Robledo

Edith was born June 14th, 1961 in San Benito, Texas to Lucas and Rafaela Lopez. In 1970, Edith and her family moved to Fresno, California. As a child she attended Lowe and Jefferson Elementary School. As a teenager Tehipite Middle School and Roosevelt High School. In her teenage years she would volunteer as a candy striper for a nearby hospital and aspired to become a doctor. Edith had a passion for working with children and helping others, after finishing high school she attended Fresno City classes and took classes in child development. Soon after she began working for Kiddie Care Center, and as a teacher aid at Winchell Elementary. As an adult, Edith became diagnosed with schizophrenia and her family did all they could to help her. Shortly after she became blessed with nephews and nieces, whom she would surely begin to teach many things about style, fashion, life and the world to.

Edith was not only an aunt, she is a sister, a daughter and a friend to everyone. A passionate, forgiving and loving soul. A role model to her nieces and nephews and has made great contribution to encouraging us all to follow our dreams. To Edith no dream is unattainable and we could do anything we set our minds to. She always dreamed of going back to school to become a journalist, learn new things about the environment and travel the world. She loved kids and teaching; especially her niece and nephews. To each of us as kids, she was our aunt with the bright red lipstick, who would catch us and embrace us with a hug and smooch on the cheek, leaving a kiss stain. She taught us many life lessons but most of all to accept ourselves for who we were because we were all beautiful in our own ways. Edith allowed us to be ourselves and always engaged in conversation about the world, its state of condition and what we could do about it. Our aunt lived her life with Schizophrenia but she was never any different than the rest of us. She had a spunky personality that we loved, she was one of us.

In summer of 2014 she was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer of the ovaries after performing a biopsy on a tumor that was found. Edith silently fought Cancer for many years prior to the diagnosis and the present years to come. In late October 2016, she was sent to the Emergency Room after experiencing a great deal a pain, loss of appetite and loss of stability. She was treated and informed she would only have a month to live and there wasn’t anything doctors could do to help based on the severity of her Cancer spreading. Our family became informed and soon we would have to begin planning for our aunt. We tried our very best to give her the most we possibly could. We wanted her to be happy, to feel the love we had for her. We celebrated double Thanksgivings, Christmas’s and Birthdays. Each family contributing in any way they could, knowing that life should never be taken for granted and any day could be our last.

Although life is never guaranteed, we have been very fortunate to live and celebrate the life of my aunt Edith with her. We can only thank God for giving us a few more months with her and to make more memories. Her soul will live on forever within each of us, never forgotten and always embraced! Thank you to each of my family members for helping in any way they could. Special thank you to God for blessing us with a beautiful soul in this short life and for giving courage and strength in moving forward and in our daily life.