Tedessa Carr
This week, To Be Human visits a store in Kansas City, Missouri, where as a teenager Tedessa Carr took several years away from school to help her dying grandparents. Her biggest realization from the experience: if there’s something you really want to do, don’t wait.
Store # 02326
Kansas City, Missouri
As a teenager, Tedessa Carr – or Teddy as most everyone calls her – took several years away from school to help her dying grandparents.
“My grandparents wanted to pass at home, so that’s what my mom and I did is allow them to do that,” Teddy said. “I thought (dying) was some big, dramatic thing. But there’s not really any lead up or afterwards, it’s just a breath, and then that’s it.”
It was important to help her grandparents, but also stressful. “It was every day, nonstop, no breaks, waking up at 3 a.m. and changing your grandmother’s bed pan because it just had to be done. I thought everything would get back to normal after they passed, but after all of that, I didn’t know what to do with myself,” she said.
Her other biggest realization from the experience: If there’s something you really want to do, don’t wait. Teddy dreams of becoming a freelance graphic designer, and knew she needed to get back to school. So at 20, she earned her GED, and now, at 23, she’s taking design classes at a local community college.
“I just wanna be out and traveling and meeting other people and designing for them, whatever they need in that moment, and just experiencing a lot of different places and people,” she said.
– Jennifer Warnick
“I just wanna be out and traveling and meeting other people and designing for them, whatever they need in that moment, and just experiencing a lot of different places and people.”
