Andria Jane “Andi” Southern Smith

Born September 11, 1953 in Oklahoma.

Died November 14, 2021 at her home in Concord, California

This page is for family and friends who loved Andi, my sister. A mix of pics and bits of life story, this page is a private one I’ve posted on my blog website. You can only access this page with this link: https://toniawoolever.com/remembering-andi/

Feel free share the link with others via text or email or private message — but please DO NOT post it publicly on Facebook or other social media platforms.

You can leave comments or add your stories of Andi below, in the comments section.

If you have pictures or stories to share, text or email them to me at twoolever@gmail.com.

Thanks for loving my little sister!

Toni (Southern) Woolever

Andi found her life’s love in David Smith, and they married October 2, 1999. They had 22 years together at her home in Concord, California.

David died on December 8, a little over three weeks after Andi passed on. He didn’t want to live without her, so he chose to stop the life-saving dialysis he had been on for years.

What may seem at first glance to be a tragedy, is, in fact, a great love story. Inside their wedding rings was the matching inscription:

“If go, take with.“

Andi, my little sister

Andi and I were born three years apart, in Oklahoma. I was always the dark, chunky monkey who took after our Dad; Andi was the cute little blonde pixie who took after our mother, Gen.

Our folks divorced when we were very young, and in 1961 our mother moved us three girls to Port Aransas in 1961, where I entered the fifth grade and Andi entered second grade. There was no high school in Port A then, so Andi and I both went to Flour Bluff High. I moved away from Port A in 1969 when I got married. Andi and our mom moved to California in 1970, where they spent the rest of their lives.

After high school, Andi became a legal secretary in San Francisco, a career she stuck with until she retired. She loved her work, and I understood why, since I also worked as a legal secretary for many years.

Like many close siblings, even though we lived half a continent apart, we discovered over the years that we loved so many of the same things: photography, gardening, and spending time with family and friends, and travel, to name a few. I love maps and atlases of the world; Andi, I discovered, had more maps on her walls than art work. Above her work space was a city map of London, because she had visited it AND because one of her first reading loves was the works of Charles Dickens.

After Andi passed away and the task of cleaning out their home fell to me, I discovered and later shipped home to Texas 30 boxes of “Andi’s life.” She saved it all. If you wrote her a card, it’s probably at my house now, along with every picture she took. Her souvenirs and journal notes of trips are waiting for me to relive with her some day.

Of course, I wasn’t ready to lose Andi, not to mention her husband Dave. Hubby Ron and I did their wedding in her backyard garden on October 9, 1999. David was a great guy and we loved our visits with them. Our typical visits involved playing cribbage (both Andi and I married older guys who loved this old-fashioned card game and taught us); eating great food, a fun outing or two, and watching movies. Andi and I loved taking long walks together.

As much as we loved getting together, our in-person visits grew further apart as the years went by. My husband Ron and I were doing lots of traveling around the U.S. and overseas, doing Christian missions work. Andi flew to Texas every summer to visit us or our Dad in Rockport and friends in Port Aransas, but grew increasingly terrified of flying. She gave up flying altogether and began to drive solo cross-country for her summer visits to Texas.

As the years went by, Andi took on being David’s full-time caregiver. In 2016, David went from being partly handicapped (from a 1980’s motorcycle injury) to being totally bedridden. His three times a week dialysis appointments had to be accomplished by ambulance transport, which Andi oversaw with great care.

I have to admit, when Andi first married a man whose right arm and hand didn’t work at all, I wondered if she would grow tired of all the assistance he would need. But David’s needs revealed something in my little sister nothing else had: the heart of a great caregiver. When David was diagnosed with diabetes and later suffered complete kidney failure, Andi learned the special requirements of a renal diet and for years carefully calculated the phosphorus and potassium of every single bite David ate!

In fact, Andi turned out to be a fierce caregiver. I’m quite sure Andi enabled David to live many more years than he might have. No way she would let David decline on her watch! After her passing I found dozens of Post It notes on her kitchen cabinets, many had food count reminders that simply said “phos” and “pot” with numbers for a piece of chicken or such.

As the years went by, I would ask Andi, Can we come out for a visit this year? But the answer was always, “Not now, my house is a mess, stuff piled up everywhere. All my spare time is resting up between taking care of David. Maybe in a few months.” I hated not seeing her, but I understood. Andi was just overwhelmed. So we had great visits by telephone.

Andi diagnosed with cancer.

As the summer of 2021 faded into fall, Andi was in constant pain, especially in her shoulder, back and legs. She tried to keep going by hiring more caregivers to help with David, but finally had to hire someone to help take care of her.

She went to the E.R. in October for pain management, where she learned that scans and X-rays revealed she had advanced lung cancer which had invaded the bones in her should, legs, and spine. When she called from the hospital on my birthday the next day, she tried not to tell me.

It was heart-breaking news, but not surprising. We both started smoking as teenagers. I was terribly addicted to smoking for 18 years, but with the help of the Lord, finally got free in 1987. Our mother Gen died of lung cancer which metastasized to her brain in 1996. After caring for Mom through her final days in California, we hoped Andi choose to quit, but she informed the family that she loved smoking, might never quit, and told us to never bother her about it again.

This time, when I said I was coming, Andi didn’t resist. By the time I got tickets and arranged care for my husband Ron, I arrived at Andi’s home in Concord, California on Saturday morning, November 13. Three days earlier, Andi had agreed to hospice care. She was in so much pain from the cancer in her bones that she couldn’t bear to fight it. She had said goodbye to her bedridden husband Dave in the next room every night, just in case.

We had a sweet reunion, though it broke my heart to see the condition she was in. Even so, we sang a favorite childhood song, shared some memories, and some silly thing I said to her elicited one of her girly giggles. I loved that about her, and that even into her 60’s she didn’t lose that. After about three hours, Andi was exhausted, her pain was creeping up, and she asked for medication. I was relieved when she slept.

But she never woke again. She passed away just before 4 am the next morning, November 14. I cried and grieved, but was grateful that her suffering was cut short. As I hugged her the last time I also worshiped the Lord, because three weeks earlier, Andi asked me help her pray to accept Jesus Christ. She did this from her hospital bed, baptizing herself with a bit of water. From that moment she took great comfort in being prayed over, in having the Scripture read to her, and in the Lord’s presence with her.

I had told Andi about Jesus in 1983 on her first visit to Texas after I became a Christian. She wanted to know everything the Bible said about that, and why I had so dramatically turned from being completely anti-religious to loving Jesus so much. I was disappointed then that she didn’t go on to accept Christ; her reasoning was that she just didn’t believe a loving God would make Jesus die for her, and went forward believing that this loving God accepted all who believed He existed. But facing her own death, Andi didn’t want to take any chances. And I am so glad. I know she lives, and I will see her again.

David chose to follow Andi rather than live without her.

When Andi passed away, she left behind her heart-broken husband, David. In fact, Andi warned me before I even arrived, “David doesn’t want to live if I die. He plans to stop his dialysis after I go.”

David had been on life-saving dialysis for years. In fact, four years earlier when, during a spell of pneumonia, after struggling to breathe for several days, Dave told the doctor to let him die. On top of the breathing issue, the same motorcycle accident which handicapped David forty years earlier also gave him horrible spikes of pain every hour of every day. Andi, who normally made sure David had everything he desired and got to live life on his own terms — stepped forward in his hospital room that day and said, “Please don’t leave me, David! Not yet!”

David relented that day. But now, with his love suddenly gone, and facing the prospect of living in a nursing facility being cared for by strangers and in constant pain, he didn’t want to stay. As Andi warned, David unwaveringly chose to stop dialysis. He did just that three weeks after she passed away, giving me time to get his financial affairs in order so to provide for his daughter Laura, 42, who also requires full-time care due to cerebral palsy from birth.

I stayed with David and cared for him through his last days, as I promised Andi I would. David and I had many hours together reminiscing over their life together. And being football season, I watched every San Francisco 49ers game with David. They loved the 49ers! Andi loved football, period. When we talked football, she didn’t just talk about whether the Niners won or lost; she went into coaching philosophies, offensive and defensive schemes, and the details of contracts and recruiting. She had the current football schedule, the team roster, and the radio/TV schedules of every show about the 49ers, taped on the wall by her bed and inside her kitchen cabinet door.

For love of Andi, I cheered on Jimmy Garappalo and Kettle in November and December.

David never wavered from his decision to stop dialysis, and he passed away on December 8, anxious to be reunited with Andi. Though David was raised a Christian, he hadn’t been on friendly terms with God for many years. But I believe God never abandons his redeemed one, and that David and Andi are both in heaven now — getting to know our magnificent Jesus together.

Discovering more about Andi’s life

I miss my sister terribly, and wished for more years together. She was 68 when she passed away. But she lived life on her terms, a life I discovered in greater detail over 40 days of staying in their home, first taking over as caregiver for David in his last days, then later sorting through and packing everything as we prepared to sell their home.

On top of that she left behind about four years of unopened junk mail for me to sort and trash. She wasn’t a hoarder, but she was wired for “just in case I might need that.” We were alike in that regard, though I do throw my junk mail out the same day it arrives. My kids will thank me.

Andi loved flowers and gardening. Her prizes included an orange tree that made the sweetest oranges you ever tasted; a blood red camelia bush that blooms gloriously every spring; a large yellow rose bush tree; geraniums; and a large spray of lavender lantana that greeted you at the front door of her house.

Andi was a voracious reader! Her library included an antique collection of Charles Dickens (her first reading love) plus Jane Austen (her second reading love), then Lee Child, and Robert B. Parker, whose books and movies Andi preserved in every possible format: paperbacks, audio cassette tapes, VHS movies, DVDs, and finally, Audible books spread across eight different Kindles! An emergency for Andi was when her Kindle battery died in the middle of a long walk while listening to a murder mystery.

David had an enormous vinyl music collection and great stereo setup, and his own movie collection of film noir. He also built Scale N Model Trains from the Southern Pacific era. David was an intellectual who loved nothing more than a great conversation about all kinds of topics, and his library was full of great books.

I miss you, Andi, and always will. Thanks for being a great sister and a great friend.

Toni