Happy Birthday Carol!

and Merry Christmas to all. May we all celebrate her today in our own way. Just think this is the 1st time she has been able to be with ALL of us today - in our hearts and memories! Happy 2008 to everyone too!!! Love, Sharon and John

A Beautiful Day in Maine for Carol

On Nov. 10, 2007, Family and Friends gathered at the chapel of St. Bartholomew's in Portland, Maine, for a final goodbye to Carol.
Justin conducted the service, nephew Eli and cousin Michael played guitar with music that Carol loved. Some of us told stories about Carol and how much we all miss her great smile, personality plus and how she was always the "hostess with the mostest."
Her friends were many and diverse and she held family especially close. She loved people and she loved life itself.
There were beautiful yellow roses, her favorite, from Mom, Lois, Eli, Hannah and Justin and flowers from Don also. After the ceremony we drove to the cemetery where Carol was laid to rest near her father, Ed, and Tom, Lois' husband.
It was a beautiful site and she picked it out for the view of the marsh and the trees. Her burial urn was a beautiful green oriental design - very Carol.
She was indeed a special person to all of us.
We miss her so very much.

Lynn, this one's for you

Hi everyone,

Call us the 3 muskateers, Polly, Kay and Sharon. We got together at Polly's to listen to the tape that was made when Polly went to a psychic reading with Tu Bears a couple of weeks ago. Tu Bears definately made a connection with our Carol - in fact it was Carol that told Tu Bears to tape the reading so we could all have a copy. The most important thing we learned is that she is with us all - all we have to do is say her name and she is with us. She also said that she will be with us (on this plane) for the next 9 months. I thought this was a strange time frame - but then a week later I discovered that Sarah is pregnant! I think we all feel that this will be a girl - but if not his middle name will be Carol! What do you think?? Here are some pictures - The 3 of us went through most of the "basket" while together that night eating pizza and drinking champagne! Love you all! Stay in touch!!!

Love, Sharon

What's up?`

Anything going on? Someone post something! News of Fred? My daughter got a new car. That's my big news...your turn now guys!

Happy Halloween!!!!

Lynn

Happy Birthday to our lovely girl!

Have a wonderful day Eva Bean! We love you so much and we hate that we are so far away from you. We will be thinking of you all day tomorrow and I will be reliving the day of your birth as I do every year from waking up at 5:30 in the morning in labor to giving birth to you at 5:30 in the afternoon.

I'll be remembering the 28 years I've had with you from those first few thrillingly precious moments of seeing you and holding you for the first time to now, the talented, intelligent, beautiful woman that you have become, and all of those wonderful years in between. 28 years! Just too crazy to be believed. I am so proud of you and so happy to see what you have accomplished my darling....I just wish we all lived closer to one another!

May your dreams come true sweet girl. You are making it happen. Believe. Believe. Believe. I love you with all of my heart.

...and very big love to everyone else in the family too, family and friends. I love you all- leslie

Freddie and Nikita

Wow do I love Freddie. He is such a joy, and as you can see I am obsessed. Nikita has really adapted to him to. I am SO happy to have him, and I think he adores New England weather. He is getting really athletic, and I have been taking him and Nikita to a nearby park with ponds and mud and grass and woods, they just love it , getting the ball, and Freddie can jump like no other dog I have ever seen, its incredible. Here he is giving me kisses. Just wanted to give everyone an update.
Love you all, cant wait for the memorial.

Eva

A Memory of Carol

Traveling Puppy

I'm so glad Fred got home safe & sound. How is Nikita (sp?) handling the new brother? Any face offs for Alpha Dog yet? Kee us all posted on the progress. Miss you all!

Lynn

Freddie and the White Mountains

So this is Freddie snew Home. I just wanted to report to everyone what a love he is, and he is fitting in just great. We went to the beach yesterday, and he was so funny in the water, biting and drinking it. Yes, then he got sprayed by a skunk, but Momma Eva knows the magic formula for getting that out. Here are him and Nikita fresh from a skunky bath, and he is so sweet and good!!! He and Nikita are getting well aquainted, and he has already stolen all of her toys, which we will have to get many more of. This is the beach we were at yesterday.
The above picture is of the White Mountains, called mt. Chocurua, and it was a beautiful hike, and an amazing day. Its so funny that we both climbed moutains Sharon!!!

So, I just wanted to post and let everyone know that Freddie is happy and safe, and we are just loving him. He loves New England, skunks and all.

OK People...wake up!

Hi Everyone, It's me Sharon!

I found some more great pictures that I wanted to share while going through more of Carol's things. She had so many THINGS!!! It's not been easy, waking up and knowing I am heading to the condo to sort through all of her precious possessions but it has to be done and it doesn't feel like Work at all but I do feel emotionally drained after its done. It's just not fair - but as I learned when I was about 7 from my uncle Vic - tough shit kid- life isn't fair. ( my younger cousin Vicky ate my twinkie and I snitched on her to her dad. - that was his response.) About a year ago - Vicky bought me a box of twinkies - I think because she was so tired of hearing this story. Anyway enough about my life's lessons.

Thursday after me and Polly and Mary and our friend Judy (who knew Carol well) were done at the condo, the sisters from Tizzy and Lish (the antique store down the block from where Carol used to work) had a Contessa Party in honor of Carol. She got to know them about a year ago and would spend many a lunch hour looking through their things and asking them to "put this on hold" for her. They had a great spread with appetizers, gift boxes and "feathers" everywhere - Carol would have loved it! We exchanged stories and reminisced about our Carol. They only knew her for a year but they talked about how much she touched them. Thak you Donna and Teri, I'll never forget it!

John and I hiked the summit of Mt. Rose 2 weeks ago- it about killed me - 7 hours and 15 minutes round trip. We did it for Carol and a few other friends we have lost in our 7 years here in Reno. He kept having to prod me saying "you're doing this for cancer - and I would correct him and say I am doing this AGAINST cancer and FOR Carol"! Needless to say I was SORE -could barely do my stairs for about 3 days. It was exhilerating, beautiful and very worth it. I am taking vacation next week - we are delivering Carol's 2 armoires to Marcy in San Francisco - am looking forward to seeing her and Maria. I do feel very close to the friends Carol has made - like I told her - she has great taste in friends - especially me!

Please stay in touch ! I love you all!

Sharon

PS. Fred is now an "Eastie" as John is calling him - we miss him terribly!!

OK, so I'm backwards!

LEFT...LEFT...I'M ON THE LEFT IN THE PICTURE!

One More

One more before I go...Here's me (trying to jump off the bar to the right!) & my friends Merry, Monica & Fran At a Marching Band Awards Dinner a couple of years ago. Yes, we were sitting on a bar taking pictures at a high school event. What can I say...the Band Parents are worse than the kids!

Me & My Best Friend!

For those of you that have been asking for pictures, here's Amanda & I at Disney World last September. We were "helping" the Disney people clear out the Magic Kingdom for Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party. More pictures later when I get a chance.

Miss you all!

Lynn

lets keep them coming

Ellen sent me these yesterday....look at those pretty girls!

These photos were taken at a birthday party that my daughter Eva (Carol has always called Eva her understudy) organized as a surprise for my 50th birthday (May-2005), the greatest surprise of my life.....It literally bowled me over. I didn't have one inkling.....

My family and friends managed to converge, without me suspecting one little bit, on Key West for an incredible few days that I will never forget. This photo is of Ellen and Carol and was taken at Alice's Restaurant, one of our favorites places to eat in Key West.


Carol, trying to keep me organized as I opened gifts and cards....

Our Carol.......One of the amazing things that I learned about her is that she managed to keep up with SO MANY people and yet didn't make a fuss or production of it. Who knew she was so involved with so many of us? It was so important to her to be a part of the celebrations and sorrows of all of those that she loved.
She made each and every one of us feel like the center attraction of her life. I should re-phrase that because the way I wrote it makes it sounds disingenuous. We, as her family and friends WERE the center attraction of her life and she managed to be a part of all of our lives beautifully, seamlessly. What a woman, what a force of life.

My darling Aunt June, Carol and Lois' mother, a force of nature in herself, with Bitsy, one of our beloved family pets......
more later, love you all- leslie

Listen to the water...

Carol and I took a trip up to Markleeville, CA for a picnic last year about this time and happened to come across this Truckee River scene. It was her suggestion that I photograph it. She liked it so much she used it as a screen saver.
Just wanted to share a peaceful thought of a beautiful place with a nice memory of Carol.
We had a wonderful picnic - met two ladies who were also picnicking and celebrating their birthdays. We shared cake (my birthday too!), and of course a glass of wine. It was a marvelous day - and a marvelous memory.
We always said we would file these wonderful scenes away so we could reminisce about them when we were rocking in our rocking chairs at the "home"....
Dolores

FREDDIE'S NEW HOME!!!

So, Here are a few pictures I found that I wanted to share. The first one is when Carol and Aunt June came to visit Portsmouth last year, and we went to this adorable little restaurant that Rachel Ray had gone to when she was in town, we had so much fun!!!
The next is a picture of me on my little vespa, and my dog nikita in the back. I will have to get a side car for Freddie. No problemo. Here is a pic of Freddie that Sharon posted a while back. He is adorable, and I have been telling everyone about him. I cannot wait to see him!!
Last is a picture of nikita and I in the Halloween parade, that picture was on the front of the newspaper!!! WERE FAMOUS!!!! Anyway, I would like to upkeep what Carol did, posting frequently, ANYTHING she wanted to share, and lets just do this thing, people. I want to hear from all of everyone, see pictures, everything!!!

I love all of you!!!

Eva

a very recent photo

This was sent to me today, by my cousin Ellen. Ellen and Carol were the closest in age of all of the cousin's. Carol was the eldest, the trail blazer. Ellen, just a few years after Carol, was the second baby born to the amazing three sisters, Aunt June, Aunt Margie and Aunt Phyllis.

Carol and Ellen have always been very close. This photo was taken just this past June at Ellen's house and pictures, in addition to Ellen and Carol, my cousin Phyllis (Carol's god-daughter), Aunt June (Carol's mother), Aunt Margie and Uncle Jim (Ellen's and Phyllis'parents).

As Ellen pointed out to me in her e-mail, Carol's illness was not visible here, though she wasn't feeling well. She looks great doesn't she? She loves her family so much.

a call for communicaton

This is Leslie writing....just to be writing. I'm not even sure of what I have to say, but I'm hoping that other's will write and report in this aftermath of Carol's passing.

First of all I just want to express my extreme feelings of gratitude to everyone. What an amazing experience this was and what amazing people I met. For me personally this is a life-changing, life enhancing event that I am still integrating as I am guessing we all are.

The feeling of blankness and no words that descended on me after Carol passed is persisting yet I feel the need to reach out and connect with everyone. We were all involved in a very profound experience, whether we were physically there with Carol or not and many of us checked this blog several times a day. I know for myself I have continued to check in and greedily taken in whatever has been written.

I have felt bothered by my mood, wanting to shake it off, but I have finally decided to just let it be, ride it out. My thinking about it now is that I'm integrating this experience and it might take time. I'm just going to be patient and trust that this is a process.

What I've personally been bothered by is that prior to Carol's death I had just moved out, at the beginning of this summer, of a 2 year period of drawing inward, working at home, spending time with my husband, my daughter Liz's family and really no others.

After returning from Reno I have wanted to return to that state of withdrawal and it is difficult to regain the motivation to go out again, continuing to develop the new friendships that I have begun this summer. I want very much to feel the desire to venture out again and after some feelings of hopelessness I have realized that with time I will get back to that.

One of the things that I learned from Carol and the experience that we all just had is the power of connection with other people. She was a master of that wasn't she? And in fact that is what she reported to me with even more vehemence on one of the days preceding her death, that people are what count, relationships, building people, taking care of each other, putting our time and resources into each other is what is the most important. She told me with the preface of , "You know Leslie, I'm here, dying and this is what I can tell you...."

The other thing I wanted to talk about is what happened to me the night before I left Reno, because I've had a lot of questions about it. I still feel sheepish about the whole thing. Carol passed away at 1:30 in the morning, early Monday morning, on the 20th of August. No one had gotten much sleep for days.

When I arrived in Reno I was fighting a virus that had settled into my glands and throat. It seemed to pass and I didn't pay much attention to it.

Monday night, my mother, cousin Lois and Aunt June went to the Atlantiss Hotel to stay overnight. We were scheduled to fly out the next morning at 11:00. Because I snore horribly I had a room to myself. My room was supposed to be right across the hall from my mother's and aunt's but there was a mix-up and I was given a room in a whole other wing. I was thrilled to have a whole room to myself, a giant king-sized bed. I envisioned a good nights sleep, waking up when I woke up, a long bath, and breakfast with everyone before going to the airport.

At 4:30 in the morning though I awoke with sharp pains in my chest and difficulty breathing. I had never experienced anything like it and had no idea of what was going on. I called my husband in Michigan terrified that I might be having a heart attack. We didn't want to be over-reacting and yet he advised me to call 911. We don't have health insurance either so when they came and wanted to take me to the hospital in an ambulance I refused. By this time, my poor exhausted mother and cousin had come to the room. It is clear to me now that the fear exacerbated the pain I was experiencing making it worse. It was decided under great duress (caused by the absence of health insurance) that I should definitely go to the hospital, because something was clearly not right and we had to make sure, so Lois and my mother accompanied me by taxi to the hospital.

Once there, they determined that it wasn't a heart attack. They were concerned about a blood clot in the lung....Nope, not that. They finally figured out, and (then my family doctor filled me in on the details) that it was Pleurisy caused by the pressurized cabin of the airline flight to Reno, the presence of a virus, and then the high altitude of Reno which causes a pocket of pressure to form between the two layers of the lung causing excruciating pain upon each breathe. Within a day of coming home to sea level I was fine, no more pain, just the pain of the bill, $6000 plus.....

Mary, Mary, thanks so much for the wonderful flight home from Reno. I slept all of the way home in the lap of luxury.

My husband and I are looking at this whole no health insurance thing we're living with. It isn't a healthy dynamic in itself, but that's another story and we're responsible for that. Anyway, I just wanted to clear that up....what actually happened and how I am now.

Please, please write, and let us know how you are doing, even just to check in. Carol would want us to and this is an opportunity for support and healing, especially for Justin, Lois and her children and Aunt June who need our love and extra support right now.

I will be writing more often myself, but I don't want to be the only one, please.....I am happy to send out invitations to anyone who wants to post to this blog....Anyone can comment, but we want you to be able to post if you are drawn to do it......Thank you so much to Sharon, Polly, Ellen, Dolores for writing and Ellen thanks so much for calling our attention to Justin's comment....everyone. just e-mail me and I'll send you the prompt to join as an author- leslievictoria@msn.com

with love and gratitude- leslie

Today

Hello everyone,

This is Sharon. Today was the Memorial for our Carol. The place was just beautiful and we had wonderful pictures of Carol displayed pretty much everywhere. Don spoke first and recollected his 10 years of knowing Carol and some of the adventures they had travelling. He noted how beautiful St. Lucia was and that he thought it looked like the Gateway to Heaven. Then Barbara read a nice poem. Justin then spoke of how life with his mom was pretty much an adventure all of the time and gave us some very colorful stories of his youth. Like when Carol dressed him up in lederhosen for his 1st day of school in a new city, and how she put him in acting classes because she thought he would be the next "Tom Cruise" He had everyone laughing and really held up very well. We all know how much he will miss his awesome mom and how great their relationship was. I then stood up and at 1st apologized for not preparing a Grand Speech as Carol would be upset. But I found a wonderful poem that really sounded like Carol had written it. I will try to get copies to all that want them. Marcy then told some wonderful tales of the nearly 20 years of life with Carol, and how she was the best suitcase packer she had ever seen (even though it took 3 people to lift) and how she ALWAYS brought gifts back for everyone! I know - I have lots! It was a very nice service and there were plenty of friends giving Justin lots of hugs and support. I decided this picture would 1st make everyone laugh rather than cry, and remember how much she loved holidays, halloween included. Love you all!!!!
Sharon

carol's

carol's house