Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, January 30, 1992 TAG: 9201300139
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
HER BODY FAILED, BUT NOT THE MANNER OF HER PASSING< FOR THREE YEARS IN A
Joe Spangler is alone. His modest brick ranch in Northeast Roanoke is filled with funeral sprays, a roomful of silent medical equipment and memories of his only child.Her name was Linda Darlene Henson, but everyone knew her as Cindy. As a child, her mother called her Cinderella and the name stuck. It wasn't the only part of her childhood that stayed with her.
Joe Spangler sinks into a chair by the window, and he begins to remember.
From the time she was 6 years old, Cindy dreamed of only one thing: becoming a teacher. When she was little, she'd play school; but would never let any of her friends be the teacher. "I'm the teacher," she'd insist.
She became a good one, too.
Three years in a row in the early 1980s, students at William Byrd High School in Vinton voted her Teacher of the Year.
Then came the spells. The headaches, the double vision. Doctors confirmed the worst: multiple sclerosis, a debilitating disease that attacks the nervous system.
First she leaned on a cane. Later she taught from a wheelchair. But she was determined to keep on teaching. Every morning, her father lifted her into a car; her mother, Inez, drove her to school; and some muscular boys were always on hand to help her out. Her mother stayed with her all day. But Cindy Henson's body wasted. Finally, in 1985, she had to give up teaching.
This newspaper once wrote a story detailing her struggle. The other day, Joe Spangler called to see if the newspaper was interested in writing, as he put it, "the final chapter."
Cindy Henson died Jan. 15. She was 39.
It had been almost seven years since she'd taught in a classroom.
But Cindy Henson may have taught people as much in the way she faced death as she did in the way she faced life.
There's one thing that everyone who ever knew Cindy Henson talks about. She never complained. Never once asked, "Why me?"
"It was just her faith," Joe Spangler says. "We felt up until the end the Lord was going to heal her. . . .
"The only time she got upset about her condition was July '89. They had a special patriotic service at church. When they sang the national anthem, everybody stood. That got to her.
"We had purchased a van, with a ramp in it. When I got home and went to get her out, I heard her crying. I asked what was wrong. She said, `I couldn't even stand up when they played the anthem.' I said, `Don't worry, you still tower over anybody else.'"
Cindy Henson's body weakened, but her spirit never did. Her fortitude was an inspiration to those around her. She was wheeled to church at Oakland Baptist each Sunday and Wednesday nights.
"We didn't try to go on Sunday morning," her father says. "It was just too hard for her. We'd have to get up at 4 to get her dressed."
On those nights at church, people "would just flock around her," Spangler says. "Sometimes, it took 30 minutes just to get away from the church. They knew she wasn't able to come to church. Someone said to me the other day, `Here I am not going to church and she's coming in her condition; it makes you feel bad.'"
Cindy Henson clung to her faith. She also clung to something equally as important to her: her students.
She was divorced. No children. But many of her former students called her "Mom."
Joe Spangler suggested talking to Stuart Wamsley, a William Byrd Class of '80 grad who kept in touch with her through her years of sickness.
"The thing about Cindy, she was always more than a teacher to her students; she was a friend," Wamsley said from Boston. "She blurred that distinction really well." Even after she had to quit teaching, he said, "a lot of students kept going to her."
She would pull herself up in bed and spend hours helping them with their homework. Later, after the students she had known at Byrd had gone on to college and beyond, she'd keep up with them, through letters, phone calls, visits to her sickbed. They'd talk about literature - and life.
She couldn't be any other way.
"She was born to be a teacher," Wamsley says. "She always thought of herself that way. It was just her being. She just lived and breathed it.
"The worst thing to her was having to stop teaching, not having MS. But even after she had MS, she continued to keep relationships going and teach people. It was just astounding. Of all the difficulties she faced, she had this way about her. People would leave visits with her feeling better."
Their numbers slacked off in later years, as her former students went their separate ways. But there were still special times.
As long as she could, she kept up her traditional Christmas Eve open house for former students. "I didn't find that many teachers who would open up that much of their personal time," Wamsley recalls. He remembers having long talks with Henson about "Don Quixote," a book she tried to help him through in high school.
"In many ways, we saw ourselves as idealistic dreamers; that was one of the things we had in common," Wamsley says. "She really identified with that story, and fighting against all odds and still being happy and not letting things get you down."
But, Lord, it had to have been hard.
Her mother died in 1986. Cancer. Joe Spangler retired early from his office job at a trucking company to care for his daughter. "He was like a full-time nurse," says Mike Woody, a minister at Oakland Baptist.
"I tried to continue the things her mother was doing," Spangler says. "I felt if I'd continue what she was doing, I wouldn't make so many mistakes. I always asked myself, `What would 'Nez do?'"
So every Christmas, he gave Cindy a music box, just as her mother had always done. Cindy Henson collected bears and candles, too. Joe Spangler keeps a cabinet full of her knickknacks in the living room.
Last year, her condition worsened. She had three long stays in the hospital, 57 days, 88 days, then 91 days, usually hooked up to a ventilator. Joe Spangler stayed by her side throughout, sleeping in a chair by her bed, just to let her know someone was there during the long nights. When dawn came, he'd go home to run some errands, then return in the afternoon.
Once, his minister praised Spangler's dedication in a sermon. He disagreed. "I was not doing anything unusual," Spangler says. "Any wild animal would do what I'm doing. They'd fight and die for their young."
But his daughter's eternal optimism was an inspiration for him, too. "Her faith and courage is what kept me going. I got my strength from her. To see her, I had to keep going."
And her students stuck by her, right up to the end. "Most times when I visited her at the hospital," says Woody, the minister, "some of her old students were there." He was one, too, from back in the '70s when Cindy Henson taught at Cave Spring High School.
Wamsley stopped by when he was home over Christmas. "It was really hard. She was in terrible shape. We had a long conversation. She'd just nod as I'd ask a question. It was really tragic to see somebody who had all of her faculties still with her but her body wouldn't respond."
Late on the afternoon of Jan. 15, Cindy Henson fell asleep. Forever.
"They think her heart just gave out," her father says.
Wamsley made a special trip from Boston for the funeral. Other former students came from as far away as Charlotte, N.C. One of her doctors sent Spangler a letter of condolences.
"Never in my years as a physician have I encountered a patient so brave as Cindy. She was an inspiration to many, including all the physicians who cared for her."
That was one of Cindy Henson's best lessons.
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