Donald Tetto Memorial Fund
Donation protected
Donald William Tetto suddenly departed our world on Friday, May 4th, 2018. On behalf of his wife Chelsey and 18-month-old daughter Lucia, we have set up this memorial fund to help with their unexpected medical and living expenses.
The following excerpt is written by his wife, Chelsey Bingham Tetto:
Donald became ill in Mexico City on Monday, April 30th, 2018 but he was determined to get us to Mérida on Tuesday morning, as we had planned. It was a strange plan to move our family to Mérida, Yucatán for the next two months—a plan that, looking back, makes no sense at all, but all the sense too.
We arrived on Tuesday afternoon and by Wednesday morning, his sickness had rendered him severely dehydrated, and he had to be hospitalized. It seemed a standard food poisoning case—something we came to accept as part of travel and the lives we had chosen—and that Donald would surely become strong again after a day or two of treatment. Over the next day and a half, he became significantly weaker and more incoherent despite treatment, and in a flash, his white blood cell levels elevated rapidly, taking him into septic shock. I spent the next eight hours in utmost fear and anxiety as he went into surgery and then dialysis to clean his blood. At some point early in the morning I started to slip into sleep, and as I did, felt a gentle stream rush over my body “as in the Zen image (that) we are not the stones over which the stream of the world flows; we are the stream itself.” When I opened my eyes to the doctor standing before me, I knew he had left us.
The doctor said the final mechanism by which his body had been taken was called “a preservation of the species”—the organs are tricked into believing the infection is contagious so they shut down in an organized, collected way to save the rest of us. A final act of self-sacrifice for the life of others.
Donald was a poet—he found beauty in symmetry, metaphor, rhythm, and structure. He was a gentle, loving soul who lived life in play, and in his death left us an offering to continue the play. The poetry in his passing, in bringing us together at the sacred place where we wed, leaves behind a legacy of meaning in life—in its completeness there is love and suffering, lightness and darkness, all of it supports the whole.
Donald William Tetto: At the Center of the Universe
January 7, 1984 - May 4, 2018
Featured Portrait of Donald taken by Tyler Love
Featured Portrait of Chelsey and Lucia taken by AGH
Family portraits taken by Angela Pham
The following excerpt is written by his wife, Chelsey Bingham Tetto:
Donald became ill in Mexico City on Monday, April 30th, 2018 but he was determined to get us to Mérida on Tuesday morning, as we had planned. It was a strange plan to move our family to Mérida, Yucatán for the next two months—a plan that, looking back, makes no sense at all, but all the sense too.
We arrived on Tuesday afternoon and by Wednesday morning, his sickness had rendered him severely dehydrated, and he had to be hospitalized. It seemed a standard food poisoning case—something we came to accept as part of travel and the lives we had chosen—and that Donald would surely become strong again after a day or two of treatment. Over the next day and a half, he became significantly weaker and more incoherent despite treatment, and in a flash, his white blood cell levels elevated rapidly, taking him into septic shock. I spent the next eight hours in utmost fear and anxiety as he went into surgery and then dialysis to clean his blood. At some point early in the morning I started to slip into sleep, and as I did, felt a gentle stream rush over my body “as in the Zen image (that) we are not the stones over which the stream of the world flows; we are the stream itself.” When I opened my eyes to the doctor standing before me, I knew he had left us.
The doctor said the final mechanism by which his body had been taken was called “a preservation of the species”—the organs are tricked into believing the infection is contagious so they shut down in an organized, collected way to save the rest of us. A final act of self-sacrifice for the life of others.
Donald was a poet—he found beauty in symmetry, metaphor, rhythm, and structure. He was a gentle, loving soul who lived life in play, and in his death left us an offering to continue the play. The poetry in his passing, in bringing us together at the sacred place where we wed, leaves behind a legacy of meaning in life—in its completeness there is love and suffering, lightness and darkness, all of it supports the whole.
Donald William Tetto: At the Center of the Universe
January 7, 1984 - May 4, 2018
Featured Portrait of Donald taken by Tyler Love
Featured Portrait of Chelsey and Lucia taken by AGH
Family portraits taken by Angela Pham
Fundraising team: on behalf of Chelsey Bingham Tetto (4)
Holland Czyż Mikołajczyk Brown
Organizer
Los Angeles, CA
Chelsey Tetto
Beneficiary
Chantal Chadwick
Team member
Maria Usbeck
Team member
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