Cheryl A Wilson

A Dedication from her Husband

One being giving forth in selfless love

in the scheme of things is meaningless

A dust mote in the vastness of the universe

A grain of sand

Yet

If such a life awakened love in others

and contagious spread

Raindrops falling from heaven each in selfless acts of love

would create a puddle, pond, lake, then a sea

An ocean of love

Birth of a star, gases swirling, coalescing

heated supercritical, ignites in fusion

radiating warmth and light across the universe.

Nurturing the source

The womb of creativity

The lathe of heaven

A force that cannot be stopped

Only embraced in acceptance

This is the ocean Cheryl swims in.

If each of us could do this thing would it not change the

very fabric of the universe?

The cosmic matrix reshuffled like a deck of cards

In which the queen of hearts reigns supreme.

I wonder in awe of such a dream

A dream that lived in Cheryl.

BIOGRAPHY

Cheryl was born in Columbia, Missouri but soon after moved with her mother to Milwaukee, Wisconsin where she grew up. At the age of seven she suffered severe injuries from a car accident on Thanksgiving Day taking a year to recover in the hospital. After this tragedy she started her life again going to school and doing the things children do at this age. Tragedy struck again with the death of her mother from cancer when she was t thirteen. Her world turned upside down again she stayed with different relatives moving from state to state. Although she felt during this time like a ship that had lost her mooring a drift at sea, she did not idol in self pity or let her doubts stop her from making the best of it.

Through high school and then finishing school she volunteered for all the lead jobs from Crossing Guard to Master of Ceremonies, graduating with honors. After this she joined the army and was honorably discharged from the Signal Core. she told me she talked to and got to know all the generals during the Vietnam War. At this point she followed prospects on the west coast and began her college education in the bay area. First her associate arts degree, then Bachelor of Arts, and graduate work with a master of arts focusing on psychology. She started plans for her doctorate work with studies in Child behavioral disorders. Convinced that despite childhood traumas and abuse that are often the source of childhood behavioral disorders, treatment must always begin with correct nutrition and dietary habits before other treatment modalities should be explored. Her observation was that the field of child psychology completely overlooked this, focusing on analysis of child trauma and behavioral disorder typically paralleled with medications, rather than taking a holistic mind body approach to healing. In essence, no effective healing is possible without addressing chemical and biological imbalances first. She fleshed out a treatise on "The Effects of Nutrition and Diet on Child Behavioral Disorders" (unpublished).

Her life took a joyous turn with marriage to Thomas Wilson and the birth of her son Asedo Wilson. She turned to practicalities of raising her son and earning an income during difficult economic times. Unfortunately, after more than fifteen years of marriage to Thomas things did not work out and they were divorced in 1986. As a single mother the pressure was on to make a living and raise her son. She worked as a receptionist, secretary, counselor, recruiter, and tutor. This work history evolved into a job with the Oakland Unified School District as an Instructional Assistant for the Tutoring Workshop. This position is the beginning of her relationship with Lincoln Child Center a non-profit organization w hose mission is helping severely disturbed children heal and become successful members of society. This began at the Tutoring Workshop whose site location was sponsored by Lincoln Child Center. Not long after this she joined the Lincoln team. She played an important role in the creation of Lincoln's first "Day Treatment Program" designed to help children unable to function in normal public school environment. It did not take long for her boss Jackie Houser to figure out that Cheryl had talents way beyond her current duties and swooped her up before anyone steeled her away.

Cheryl's promotion to Assistant Director of Administration and Operations was the beginning of a lifelong career with Lincoln Child Care Center which led to countless opportunities to interact with the staff, volunteers, and children of Lincoln. Her devotion was clearly to help these children. It was a rare day that she was not involved in events planning for child activities or fund raising events at Lincoln. Over the decades Cheryl had worn so many "hats" that she would tell me "they can't figure out which job description on file was correct".

Impossible to describe the varied roles she played at t his agency over the decades, her focus on helping children never changed. Employee of the month too many times to count and receiving the honorable James Mann Award for her dedication and commitment to children, ending with the title of Honorary Board Member of Lincoln Child Center.

Cheryl's service to children did not end in retirement, she simply changed her focus joining one of Lincoln's most successful fund raising groups "The Daffodils" she also was key in supporting and participation in "The Gourmet Club" as well as many other fund raising and child events. Lincoln owes a debt of gratitude to Cheryl.

THE THINGS SHE LIKED TO DO

We loved camping, traveling up and down the west coast having many adventures together. Fine dining was another pleasure of ours. Film buffs we never had to listen to the director's commentaries as we were the director's commentary. Music was a passion and always apart of our life. One of her secret hobbies was photography. And she loved yoga and dancing.