Remembering Carole

My father-in-law asks for a little help- Can I please look in Carole's purse and find her lipstick for the funeral home?  I will of course do whatever I can to help.  But its such a private act, an intimate representation of her, and I fight the feelings that I don't belong looking through her things.  Everything has changed.

My sister-in-law and I rummage through jewelry, clothes, make up.  We know how she'd want to look. At least we hope we are getting it right.  We ask that they put pink socks on her feet, because she never likes to have her feet bare.  And I find one of my gold rings to fit on her hand, not wanting her fingers to lie bare either.  Its for her our comfort as its the last things we feel we can do for her.

I go to put extra water in the coffee maker and just stop myself before dumping it in... I always make a little extra when Carole is staying with us.  There is no more need for extra.  The normal amount of water in the coffee maker now looks stark, and extremely inadequate.  Our cups feel so barren, so empty.

When we struggle with the spelling of her mother's name it seems we should just turn around and ask her... but we can't.  We eventually figure it out.  But the reminders of her not being here with us come at us faster than we can absorb sometimes.

Plus, how can it really be that she is gone?


Our house floods with food, family, friends, tears and laughter.  Everyone wants to know, "How can this be?  What happened?" We shake our heads from side to side, no words adequate to express what we simply don't know.  She was with us one day and gone the next.  And what remains is forever without her and trying to find ourselves again as the waves continue to crash over us.



These are a selection of the photos we used at the memorial service and I thought I'd share for the ones not able to attend the services.

Jim and Carole with Rick and Missy... the birth of Matt would follow a few years later.

Gunnar, Missy's son was the first grandchild. 

Carole with Gunnar and Hunter.  Hunter passed away at the age of 4 months in 2001.  

Carole with Nolan

Carole with Nolan and Colton

Carole with Matt's oldest, Mackenzie.

Jim and Carole with Matt and Julie, Mackenzie and Ethan.

****************************************************************************

On a complete whim, the week before last, I walked into a salon and asked for all of my chemo-curls to be taken off. I feel naked and free all at the same time.

My mother to your left and her two sisters on the outside.  When I was growing up they so often were told they looked like Carol Burnett.  At the visitation, with my newly shorn hair, someone told me I looked like Carol Burnett...  hmmmm... I'll have to practice my ear tug perhaps? 

When we discovered where Carole was going to be buried it was a full circle moment for us.  She was laid to rest next to her grandson Hunter.  And just a few yards away?  Is my Dad, and both my grandparents.  

This heart-on-his-sleeve boy of mine wears his sadness.  As we prepared to leave the visitation Thursday night, he went to Carole with his Grandpa.  He walked away, alone, with huge crocodile tears sliding down his cheeks.  I asked if he was okay and he nodded... 

"Just saying goodbye," he said. I broke wide open right there.