She had 2 sons that shared her tarantula hobby as they were growing up.
She had 1,000 (yes, that's not a typo) tarantulas when her oldest son got meningitis at 18 years old and died in 1998.
Since it was a shared hobby with her boys she couldn't even go into her tarantula room any more and they started dying. She lost over half of them before her youngest son helped pull her out of her well of despair and they could start caring for them again.
This was the 13th annual Tarantula Society Conference and the first one she was able to come to even though she was the original founder of the idea and others had to take over when her heart breaking tragedy occurred.
She's on the other side of the pain...as they say....but her story stabbed my heart.
You sure can't just look at a person and see what scars they may be carrying inside.