Tribute to a Friend

Her name was Carol, although at first I knew her only as "Lark" -- a pseudonym she created to conceal her identity online. I met Carol exploring an early version of social networking on AOL. We both shared a passion for computers and were intrigued by this brave new digital world still in its infancy. Carol served as an online mentor to me and we became fast friends. Eventually we decided to meet in real life.

In the southwest suburbs, Carol lived in a small tri-level home she and her husband purchased long ago. Don died at a young age, only 46, leaving her a widow at an equally young age. Their only child, a son, chose a difficult road; he drifted in and out of her life occasionally.

One of the sweetest, most kind and deferential people I have ever met, Carol was not one to put herself in the limelight. She felt more comfortable in the role of counselor, offering common sense advice, lending a sympathetic ear, or providing solace and empathy.

During a difficult year of my life, after losing both my brother and mother, Carol took me under her wing and became a comforting source of support. She confided in me a familiar set of tragedies: the loss of her mother at an early age, plus the dual sorrow of dealing with the unexpected death of her husband on the heels of losing her sister and only sibling to cancer.

Our deepest, most profound conversations took place in her hot tub on the back porch, Celtic music playing in the background, sipping exotic drinks whipped up in a kitchen whose cabinets were painted a lively shade of lime green. Carol was fascinated with European and Celtic culture, extraterrestrials, pagan rituals, and the Druids. She had a special affinity for the natural world.

I enjoyed spending time with Carol, strolling through her gardens, feeding pea pods to her lop-eared rabbit, watching her fingers work a giant loom in the dining room, admiring her latest silk flower creations, trying in vain to catch a glimpse of the near-feral cat that moved in constant stealth mode throughout the house.

Carol was thrilled when I met Dave. She found him quite handsome and felt we were well-suited, a good match. As often happens with a new relationship, I spent more time with Dave and less with Carol. In the meantime her life had changed dramatically; she discovered that like her sister, she too had cancer.

Not wanting to burden her friends with the news, a long time passed before she told any of us. The cancer progressed quickly, leaving her partially paralyzed. After a brief stay in a rehabilitation center she returned home; her sister-in-law moved in to help Carol during the last months of her life.

Carol was too weak to visit or talk on the phone as the end neared. I called to wish her happy birthday a week before she died but never had the chance to speak with her. She came to me in a dream about the same time she left this world. Not long after I heard the news that she was gone. According to her wishes, no memorial service was planned, just a small gathering of friends to share stories and raise a toast.

When I first saw her grave marker, I was surprised to see her birth date etched in stone: the nineteenth of August. All those years I believed her birthday was the ninth of August. How silly I felt right then, knowing I called her every year on the wrong day! Still, I smiled to myself. How very like Carol to not correct me, sparing me any embarrassment.

Dear Carol, although you are missed, I want you to know that my memory is long and remains fairly accurate. I'm sharing one of your glamour shots in this journal. I know you felt they were frivolous and extravagant, but I always thought you looked beautiful in them. They captured an essence that maybe you could never see in yourself.

When someone talks about Las Vegas, I'm reminded of our fun-filled whirlwind visit that Memorial Day weekend so many years ago. When I hear the song of a meadowlark, see pictures of Stonehenge, read about crop circles, or listen to Celtic music, I think of you.

Thank you for being such a good friend. Most of all, thank you for sharing your generous heart with so many. I miss you...

Peaks and Valleys

2009 was marked by a series of peaks and valleys, both in our travels and in our personal lives.

We began the year learning that our sweet dog Raven had developed canine lymphoma with at best a few months to live. The vet recommended a treatment that put her cancer in remission for a little while. When it stopped working, we took her off the medication and let the cancer run its course.

In the spring we added a second four-legged member to our little family. Tonka is a “prison dog” we found through the Colorado Correctional Industries K-9 Companion program. A Border Collie and Blue Heeler mix (aka, a “mutt”), Tonka was a stray rescued by a ditch rider on the eastern plains of Colorado. He is smart, cuddly, and chock full of energy. At first Raven was none too thrilled about sharing her home but she soon warmed up to him. And Tonka seemed to give Raven a new lease on life.

It turns out that Tonka is also a good mountain dog. He joined us on road trips and hiking adventures in our beautiful Colorado mountains. We took him to the summit of Mount Evans, a peak towering more than 14,000 feet above sea level, and on our annual sojourn to Salida and the central Rockies.

Raven was a strong girl. She lasted nearly 10 months and enjoyed mixing it up with her new buddy until the last few days. We finally had to say goodbye to her in late September. Raven has journeyed ahead to the Rainbow Bridge, where we hope to meet up with her again one day.

In October, we took a much needed but rain-soaked vacation in Washington, DC and the surrounding area. We divided our time between the city and the country, traveling along the Blue Ridge Parkway south toward West Virginia. Part of our vacation was dedicated to searching for Dave’s ancestors, especially his great-great-great-grandfather, Napoleon Bonaparte French. This branch of Dave’s family traveled from the Shenandoah Valley to southern Virginia, settling in the New River Valley in the mid-1700s.

As the holidays approached, we were faced with the loss of another beloved member of our family. Dave’s mother has been in poor health for the past few years, but she too was strong and resilient. Marge bounced back from one illness after another, always returning to us in good spirits and ready to go out for her favorite lunch, a beef enchilada and flan. This time there would be no returning. The angels came for her at the end of November. The last of our living parents, Marge left us for what will surely be a blissful eternity. We will miss her so.

Merry Christmas  *  Happy New Year  *  Peace on Earth

Debbie, Dave and Tonka

 

(from our Christmas newsletter)

A Haunting Tale

In 1998, my eldest brother Rich was diagnosed with cancer. At the same time, my mother’s health began to take a turn for the worse. She had suffered health problems for quite some time and this particular year she became even more helpless. Dad tried his darnedest to care for her as long as he could. Rich died in late August, less than six weeks before my mother’s death in early October.

My brother Ted and I worried so much about dad. Losing a child is something no parent expects or should ever have to go through, no matter the age. The loss of his wife compounded dad’s agony. She had been his rock, his home, for the better part of his life. Ted and I later revealed that we both secretly felt it would not be much longer until dad joined his beloved wife and son.

Dad had never lived alone. He moved from his parents’ home, to the Civilian Conservation Corps, to his first marriage with Rich’s mother, to the Army infantry in the Philippines during World War II, to a painful divorce and back home with his parents who helped raise his son, then later to his second marriage with my mother. Now he was left to wander an empty house. Dad found the silence, the loneliness, and the profound grief to be overwhelming at times.

Then one day, dad told us a story. It was the middle of the night and as typical, he was reading a book. Mom’s room was next door, a small private room where she kept a desk and an antique maple twin bed. You know the kind, with heavy iron bed rails and four wooden slats spaced evenly apart to support the box spring and mattress. Well that night dad heard a loud “bang” coming from mom’s room. He instinctively called out to the dark house: “Loretta, is that you?”

The next morning dad discovered that one of the slats had fallen out of mom’s bed, as they often did. But in the past this only happened when someone sat on the bed, or possibly when the bed’s occupant turned over while sleeping. Dad was convinced mom had returned.

Over the next several months, he related stories of his experiences in the house. Once he was whittling in the basement when he was sure someone stood right behind him, watching his work. Another time he swore he heard voices. He repeatedly sensed at least one and sometimes two presences in the house. “Makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up,” he told me. At first he was frightened, then he began to engage in one-sided conversations with the visitors. Was there anyone in the house with dad? I don’t know and it doesn’t matter one bit. Real or imagined, dad was comforted by the idea of his wife and son returning to him. He lived another six years, all alone in that house, during which time he spoke to mom and Rich frequently. He was absolutely convinced of their presence.

A few months before dad died, he passed out while shopping at the grocery store. The paramedics took him to the emergency room and I was called to his side. Dad always hated hospitals and had no use for all the fussing and carrying on that occurred in those places. The emergency room doctor said she would be willing to discharge him, provided there would be someone at home with him that night. Dad replied without hesitation: “My wife is there!” Although I knew there was no physical presence in the house, as the doctor expected, I said nothing. My mother’s spiritual presence was good enough for dad; it got him released.

One of my family duties, something mom and I shared in years past, was the responsibility of caring for family graves. After mom died, I visited Fort Logan National Cemetery regularly to bring flowers and decorations. At that cemetery are buried my grandfather, an uncle, my brother, my mother, and now my father too. Before dad died, whenever I visited mom’s grave I talked to her, often blubbering away as I conveyed stories of the events in our lives, both good and bad. Like dad, I believed her spirit was right there with me. Yet not once since dad has been gone have I felt that presence at the cemetery, or anywhere else for that matter. Once they were reunited, I’m certain they left this Earth together. Their grave is now simply a marker to help remind us of the love that has moved from the suburbs of Denver, all the way to the stars.