Dave Nicholson
Correspondent
Jean Laseter Hehn faced terminal illness the same way she faced life: with courage, faith and a desire to help others.
Mrs. Hehn never wanted anyone to feel sorry for her.
She didn’t feel sorry for herself.
She created a Facebook page, Jean and the Cancer Beast, and chronicled her two-year battle with the cancer that spread throughout her body.
The 63-year-old died Tuesday, June 19. She had more than 400 followers on her Facebook page.
Through Facebook posts, she thanked God for the gift of life and reminded her friends to never take their time on this earth for granted. She wrote of the importance of cherishing family.
“Jean loved life, and she loved people,” John Hehn, her husband of 43 years, said. “This was a journey to her. She wanted to share it with everyone. I think it helped her live longer. I know it helped her live her life happier.”
John Hehn recalled that his wife always believed life is “10% of what happens to you, and 90% of what you do with what happens to you.”
Mrs. Hehn told her family, “We just keep moving forward, accepting that what lies ahead is unknown. God has a plan, and I am just called to walk with it with grace, gratitude and joy.”
She knew the disease was killing her, and she was frank with Facebook posts about the toll it was taking on her body. But she always tried to include an emotional lift.
“By the way, today is my two-year anniversary with my cancer. I'm working to remember the really good things that cancer has brought my way,” she wrote May 15. “It is not an easy path to follow, but there is beauty there.”
Tribute after tribute has been posted on the Jean and the Cancer Beast Facebook page.
“Her journey through this blessed me, inspired me, changed me,” wrote Jennifer Shelton Mallan. “She set the bar way higher with her strength, optimism and faith. Thank you for sharing her with us all as we had a front row seat to this experience. She is not in our present but in our future.”
Her husband said the outpouring has helped with the family’s grief.
“We’re so incredibly grateful for the love and support and the prayers. It’s helped to know that she has touched so many people,” he said.
One of three daughters born to Brand and Martha Laseter, Mrs. Hehn grew up in Plant City’s Pinedale neighborhood, where she liked to ride horses and developed a love of nature.
She left Plant City to obtain a teaching degree at the University of South Carolina, where she met John Hehn. After their educations were complete, they moved to her hometown.
John Hehn held executive level jobs with South Florida Baptist Hospital and other BayCare Health System hospitals before becoming executive director of Florida Presbyterian Homes a decade ago. She was a stay-at-home mom until their youngest child, Maggie, reached school age.
From 1989 until 1999, she was a teacher at Marshall Middle School, where she taught art and students with special needs.
In 2000, she decided on a career change. She earned a master’s in clinical social work at the University of South Florida and opened a psychotherapy practice in 2004.
She accepted patients regardless of their ability to pay, Maggie, 32, said.
“She wanted to help them. The money wasn’t important. If they couldn’t pay, she would see them anyway,” Maggie said.
Mrs. Hehn closed her practice after cancer was discovered first in her breasts, then pancreas and other parts of her body. In November 2014, she started her Facebook page.
She spent her last two years enjoying life and taking her Facebook friends along through words, photos and videos.
Her faith helped keep her strong, as it had throughout her life, her 35-year-old son, Jonathan, said. For years she was a youth group leader at First Presbyterian Church of Plant City. She led 10 youth mission trips to Honduras.
“She just loved life and she loved people. That’s who she was in Plant City or in the mission field,” Jonathan said.
John Hehn described her as a “counselor, confidant and cheerleader.”
She knew, in the end, the cancer beast would take her life. The Facebook page gave her a way to reach out one more time.
“I think Jean got as much out of the Facebook page as others. She felt more loved when she died than at any time in her life,” John Hehn said. “She wanted to make the world a better place, and I think she did.”
Mrs. Hehn is survived by her husband, John; son, Jonathan Hehn, and his wife, Kysha; daughter, Maggie Hehn; grandchildren, Wellington, Alivia Sage and Joia; and sisters, Peggy Laseter Lee and Betsy Laseter Hehn.
Services will be at 3 p.m. Friday, July 1, at First Presbyterian Church of Plant City, 404 W. Reynolds St.
In lieu of flowers, family suggests donations to the Presbytery of Tampa Bay’s Honduras Scholarship Fund or Moffitt Cancer Center for pancreatic cancer research in Jean’s memory.