Tara Simon

Tara Treadway Bergmann-Simon was born Monday, September 20, 1976 in Houston, Texas – four years to the day after her sister, Stephanie. She died Thursday, April 30, 2015 at the young age of 38. From birth, she exhibited fierce strength of heart, mind, and determination. She was kind and generous to a fault. Born with spina bifida at a time when few such infants survived, Tara thrived. Told that she might not be able to do something, she immediately set out to prove the naysayer wrong – and prove them wrong she did, every time. Tara was beautiful and brilliant. It would be wrong to say she was “normal,” although her only obvious difference was walking with leg braces and crutches. The spina bifida with which she was born in no way informed her life or how she lived it. But neither was she simply “normal.” Normal is for us lesser folk. After beginning college in Lake Jackson, Texas, Tara spent most of her early twenties in Lake Charles, at the side of her sister Stephanie who was ill for many years. After Stephanie died, Tara moved to Corpus Christi and returned to college; while there, she had a paper published in the college literary journal. Back in Houston, Tara braved an uncertain world again when she met and married her husband, Gary Simon in Le Grand Salon of La Colombe D’or Hotel on October 18, 2008. During their courtship she took his small daughter, Ashley Rose, under her wing and has been raising her as her own since. Tara said more than once she had to remind herself continuously that Ashley was not her biological child, because it seemed that she had grown from the beginning under Tara’s heart. Tara had many other plans left to her. She intended to finish college for a career in teaching. She wanted to have a baby. She wanted to see Ashley graduate from college, marry, and have children of her own. Meanwhile, she cared for others with little care for herself, loved with abandon, laughed infectiously, read voraciously, and lived life all out.

After surmounting its complexities all her life, she died unexpectedly from one of the many lurking dangers of spina bifida after a 5-week stint in hospital. She had been growing stronger and was planning her return home. For us left behind, the loss is incalculable. Having had her in our world made us better in ways small and large. Because she would have wanted it, her death has benefited others and part of her will live on through LifeGift. Tara was predeceased by her sister, Stephanie Bergmann; maternal grandparents, Robert & Jean Summers; paternal grandparents, Don & Louise Treadway; and grandfather Edwin C. Bergmann. She is survived by her husband, Gary Carl Simon & daughter Ashley Rose Simon; brother-in-law Jeffrey Simon & wife Paula; mother and stepfather, Karen Summers Murray & Dr. Michael J. Murray; father and stepmother Don & Sandra Treadway; second father Edwin J. Bergmann; grandmother Margaret Bergmann; grandparents Michael & Mary Murray; half-sister and brother-in-law Lindsey & Shawn Adolph; half-brother and sister-in-law Michael & Jenny Treadway; stepbrother and wife Nicholas Murray & Elizabeth Barnes; stepsister and husband Elizabeth & Johnathan Angell; and numerous aunts, uncles, nephews, cousins, and dear friends.