Remembering Carol Shea...

I want to take time to celebrate Carol Shea's life.  She was my best friend for the past 18 or 20 years. 

No two people could be more different than Carol and me. And yet the friendship worked and was wonderful.  I trusted Carol completely.  She did me too. At work we were called
"Thelma and Louise".  The nicknames fit. She was more serious and at times stoic, I am a loose cannon who could always make her laugh. She liked my life. I don't know how many times she told me over these past 8 years that she "lived vicariously through me".

We took 3 vacations together and had a hundred more planned. She got sick and just couldn't walk as well as she needed to in order to travel a long distance. 

 I gave her a retirement party in 2005 when she retired from Fulton State Hospital, due to medical reasons.   The next year I drove  Punky, Carol and me to the Upper Peninsula to visit Jo Ann, another one of their sisters.  We had so much fun and I will forever be glad we made that trip. Both of us took a lot of photos and of course, right now I can  not find them. But I do have photos from her retirement party and our two trips to Kansas City to house sit for my youngest daughter  Melodi. Those 2 trips were much needed trips for Carol. We had a nice condo to stay in. We ate out at all the good restaurants, went to see movies and shopped at an antique mall so large it took us 2 days to see everything. It was time well spent. We watched our favorite movies and ate ice cream at 3 in the morning. We laughed until we cried twice. Once when we messed up Melodi's ADT protection...the other when we visited Joe's Crab Shack and I got looped.

Below are some shots of our life. It was fun...it just ended too soon.
             
                                             

                                   2005 Retirement Party

                            

                                       Becky and Carol
                                    2 of my favorite people

                                   

        Punky moved in with Carol in 2004 or 2005. She was allowed to go to Carol's Retirement party at work. Since we worked 11-7, at that time, the party started after midnight. Everyone in the building would come down and eat on their breaks. All her friends bought their favorite dishes, sodas, coffee, and cake. Carol loved it and was really touched by how many people cared for her.  Sometimes I don't think she understood this.

This may sound crass to some people and that is ok if it does. This is our story. When it was almost time for Carol to leave her party, Becky wanted to take another picture of us. I asked Carol about giving the ole one finger salute for all the crazy, goofed up ideas and rules that often lasted no longer than 10 minutes at FSH. And so we did. It is our favorite photo and we both have them in our living rooms. Now I must confess, I had to take mine down because Jacy and Logan now can read and know what it means. They were shocked when they saw Nonnie and her friend shoot the bird.  That is mild to some of the things we have done.
   

                             

Carol, Punky and I would celebrate Christmas some day early in December. This photo was taken at my house. We celebrated there once or twice and then we decided we wanted to go out to eat. Carol introduced me to 'Reuben Sandwiches'. That became our Christmas meal of choice. I never eat one without thinking of her. I found a new place in Fulton that sells delicious Reuben's. That is where I was going to take us this year for Christmas.

I made her a scrapbook of her retirement the first Christmas she was home.

We had a fun day talking and making plans for the future. Some plans came to pass...other's didn't.                                                            

We invaded a Harley Davidson Dealership  in Kansas on our 2nd trip there. We asked the young man if we could have our photos made with this Harley. We both liked it...

                               I don't think I was supposed to
                                actually get on the bike but it
                                seemed like a good idea at the
                                time. However, the young man
                                taking the photos nearly dropped
                                my camera when I jumped on. 

                               

                          
                              Here we go again!!!  Just for old
                              times sake.

                                                                                                                                                                                                       

                              Shopping at the Brass  Armadillo... outside of Kansas City. I bought old photographs, and newspapers from WW11. Carol bought old coins, some glassware.

                                                     I have many more photos of us. Carol was a wonderful friend. I always knew she had my back and was looking out for my best interest. She felt the same about me. There was trust between us. She died yesterday and is being cremated today.  I wanted to pay my respects and share my friend with you. I will miss her more than I probably realize.