Sherrill Shelton

Memorial service for former Mountain Park resident, Sherrill Rae Shelton, will be at 1 p.m., Saturday, March 26, 2022, at the First Baptist Church, 923 E Street in Snyder. Burial will be in the Sunset Memorial Gardens, Lawton.

Sherrill Rae Shelton is glad you got to see her. If you didn't, that is your loss, as she was memorable! Born December 4, 1952, in Elk City, to Wanda Lee (Sewell) and Floyd Rae "F.R." Brannon, her life was not easy, but she laughed, she smiled, and she persevered. Sherrill battled severe mental illness for almost 50 years until her death from healthcare complications March 13, 2022, at age 69. Many so ill with paranoid schizophrenia don't live so long.

Sherrill graduated from Lawton High School in 1971, married Mark Hansen, and gave birth to Stacy. In 1973 Sherrill married James Shelton. This brought the blessing of children Josh, Jessica, and Cole, and the health insurance that would help pay for vital treatment and medications the rest of Sherrill's life. Without the medications, and years of devotion by James and the children helping her manage her illness, Sherrill would not have led the comfortable long life she lived.

Sherrill's medicated brain was focused and smart. She excelled at math and her memory was amazing. She enjoyed studying Spanish, practicing piano, reading, and crocheting. She always had houseplants, enjoyed gardening, and adored animals and trees. Any stray animal, domestic or wild within miles would find its way to her. She once found an iguana in a tree in Oklahoma, adopted a wayward rooster, and she kept such an immaculate house one would never know too many cats lived there.

Sherrill, mom, struggled with one of the worst mental illnesses that any human being can be cursed with. A crippling disease caused by chemical imbalances, schizophrenia turns the mind into a battleground, where reality is filled with delusions, voices battle for control of what is actually real, and the physical world is a landscape of false senses and dreams.

Through the decades of sickness, mom bounced back again and again with smiles and laughter. She gave us love, called us, joked with us, hugged us, and treated us with care. She was crippled with a disease that showed no mercy and she fought valiantly through it all.

We will always remember her warm smile, her laugh, her skillet enchiladas, her absolute love of animals, her free spirit, her Irish love of beer, the "old hippie" in her leather fringed jacket and boots, the free wandering spirit, the fighter, the Harlequin Book reader, the person that picked us up from basketball and baseball practice so many nights, the woman that bought her teenage son and his friends a box of condoms to keep them safe, the mom that got drunk on Wild Turkey one Christmas and thought her hangover was the flu. She was funny, honest, and straightforward, smart as a whip, laughed at crass and crude humor, and loved to play piano even after her illness had taken most of her mind from her.

We often wondered what, who, and where Sherrill Rae Brannon would have been without the illness but, no matter who she was or who she might have been, she did the best she could, loving us through sickness, disease, pain, and hurt. She did what so many mothers have always done, she gave all she could to her children, even though she was faced with an insurmountable foe.

Sherrill is survived by her four children, 10 grandchildren, one great-grandchild, her brother Warren, and her ex-husbands Mark and James.

To honor Sherrill, adopt an animal, plant a tree, be vocal for legislation that helps people with severe mental illness get the treatment and care they need, support Programs of Assertive Community Treatment (PACT): Red Rock Behavioral Health Services https://www.red-rock.com/support-red-rock or Treatment Advocacy Center www.treatmentadvocacycenter.org

An online guestbook is available at www.jacksonfuneral.net