Farewell Jill Schmitter (Howard)

["guest@endurance.net" <guest@endurance.net>]

Juliua Stroup horsewmn@aol.com
Hi, my name is Juliua Stroup and I've been participating in endurance riding since 1991. I'm writing today to tell you about someone dear to me who passed away this morning of lung cancer.  A friend and co-endurance rider just completed her longest endurance ride ever.  

Her name is Jill Schmitter (but known to most of us as Jill Howard).  She was 43 years old, six feet tall and rode a sweet (although attitude-ridden) little Arab gelding Jamil, who she raised from a foal.  She started riding endurance not long after I started and really excelled.  We rode together many times, but she usually left me in her dust.  Jill has always given me a hard time about my bad habits since she has always been so holistic and health conscious.  I've watched her drift from one camp to another talking, laughing and getting people a little more rambunctious then they had been, she was talented that way.  She always seemed to fit in where ever she went and was fun to be around.  She made her own soap (and in fact sold it to stores for a while), sheared her sheep, grew her food and took care of her two boys Nick and Alexander.

She was diagnosed with cancer about two years ago after having her third son Aramas with her new husband Markus.  They give her less then a year to live.  Oh, they tried therapies, but deemed her terminal within a very short time, but Jill thought differently, she fought with strength I never knew existed.  She worked with a holistic doctor in New York and traveled there periodically for tests.  She took gosh, I don't know how many pills every day, handfuls prescribed by the New York doctor.  Even though weak and sick, she rode the Alpine Endurance ride last fall and finished.  She'd ridden an emotional and physical roller coaster for two years, but her body was tired and gave out this morning.  She went very peacefully, in fact she was eating some sherbet ice cream with Markus.

I've never seen someone with so much strength, so much love, and so much concern for others even as the cancer attacked her body.  I think about her constantly, learning from her that we need to live, nurture friendships and families and not take things for granted.  We'd gotten to know each other so much more in the last month or so, I wish I hadn't waited so long.  I admire her in so many ways and hope I can give to others that part of her that she's given to me.  She was ready for death and said that she wasn't afraid, she made her peace and feels Blessed to have been chosen by God to join Him so soon.

I will miss her and her ways.  She was so unique and always a breath of fresh air.

Goodbye Jill, till we meet again.

If you'd like her Memorial information, please email me at horsewmn@aol.com and I'll give you the specifics.