Terry Barr Lahita, age 69, has passed away after a long fight with early onset dementia. The amount of love for Terry is in evidence via the many heartfelt notes that continue to pour in as news of her passing spreads. She was a good friend to many, always giving and making those around her feel special, and loved. She enjoyed a good glass of wine, a good laugh, a good adventure, and could deploy profanity that would make a salty pirate proud, often directed at her two sons in years past, before they got squared away and made something of themselves, inspired by her unrelenting belief in them as human beings. They will always try to make her proud.
Born in 1947, Terry was the consummate professional, one of the best nurses in her field right up until she got sick. She was a nurse practitioner who was also a certified nurse anesthetist. Born in Collingswood, New Jersey she grew up in Laurel Springs, New Jersey and later raised her two sons in Ridgewood, New Jersey. It is clear that she really liked New Jersey. She received her nursing degree from Lankenau Hospital in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She obtained her Bachelor of Nursing from Columbia University and her Masters degree in nursing from Columbia University in 1983.
Terry spent much of her early nursing years at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (1973-1986) in New York City. In 1986 she joined the staff at Englewood Hospital in Englewood, NJ as a nurse anesthetist and was there until her illness in 2010. Her skill as a nurse and her kindness was treasured by her family but also by so many who did not know her personally yet whose lives she touched. She traveled the world with the charitable organization Healing the Children, and administered anesthesia and other nursing skills to kids in need of critical medical care where conditions were often harsh.
Terry has one sister Christine Gartman of Annandale, Virginia, and an aunt, Irene Maneke, in Melbourne, FL. She will now join her mother Josephine, who recently passed in December of 2016 at age 95, and who not once wavered in her belief that her daughter would beat this terrible disease despite all evidence to the contrary. She will also join her son Andrew Lahita, who she lost to SIDS when he was a baby many years ago.
She is survived by sons Eric and Jason Lahita, daughter-in-law Annie Krasnow, daughter-in-law to be Courtney Brennan, former husband Dr. Robert Lahita and her two grandchildren Chloe and Thomas, who were the light in her eyes. Those two are in for a windfall of warm memories about their amazing grandmother.
She will be very very missed and always loved dearly.
In lieu of flowers, donations in Memory of Terry can be given to The Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration: http://www.theaftd.org/

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