Linda Lou Bussa

Linda Lou Vansickel Bussa, age 74, shuffled off this mortal coil and onto her next adventure on March 22, 2026.

Linda was born May 23, 1951, in Goody, KY, to Alice Mae (Blackburn) Vansickel and Theodore Roosevelt Vansickel. She lived many lives over the course of her 74 years: from her years spent caring for people as an EMT, to returning to college to earn her bachelor's degree in business in her 50s, to her time spent helping folks navigate the ins and outs of insurance - her life path was as eclectic as she was. With a lifelong love of video games, board games, and anything fun and challenging, Linda carried a curiosity and optimism about the world that was contagious to those around her. Incredibly creative, she is remembered for making over-the-top cakes for loved ones' birthdays, creating custom ceramics that are now family heirlooms, and her ability to sew or crochet just about anything you could imagine. A proud Wiccan, she found deep connection and meaning in the natural world and all living things.

Linda was devoted to her family and proud beyond measure of her children, their partners, and her grandchildren. She loved them deeply and worked hard to give them what she had always sought: the certainty of being loved unconditionally. In that, she was wildly successful.

A genuinely warm and loving person, she was known in high school as 'Pup,' a nickname inspired by her 'cold nose, cold hands, cold feet, warm heart.' She was remembered for her big smile, her 'Vansickel laugh,' singing her children and grandchildren to sleep with 'The Crawdad Song,' and the pitch-perfect witch's cackle she'd break out every Halloween.

She is preceded in death by her parents and her brother, Michael Vansickel. She is survived by her three sisters, Myra (Tim) Neal, Pat (Mike) Dunham, and Elanor (Kenneth) Hull; her three children, James (April) Bussa, Carrie (Bryan) Pitts, and Rebecca (Ed) Saunders; and her seven grandchildren, Uriah Pitts, Mina Bussa, Justin Bussa, Eliza Saunders, Nash Bussa, Orrie Saunders, and Jarred Bussa; and last but certainly not least, her 15-year-old pug, Precious; along with a whole bunch of nieces, nephews, greats, friends, and assorted wayward and wandering souls she adopted as her own chosen family over the years, all of whom will miss her terribly.

Those who knew Linda felt the warmth and love she shared with everyone she met, and know that the world is a little dimmer now without her light in it.

No memorial service will be held, and in lieu of flowers or donations, her family asks that you sit down and play a board game with your loved ones in her honor.