Missing Carol Shea...

Carol Shea died a year ago today.  Not a day goes by without Carol darting in and out of my memories. With all my heart I wish she were still alive. It is hard to fathom,  I will probably never have another 'best friend' in my lifetime.  It takes years to fine tune a friendship like we had. Years to be comfortable sharing your life with someone---warts and all. Years of sharing adventures, secrets, grief, laughter and the craziness we called our lives.  I probably do not have enough time left or the inclination to have another 'best friend.'  I am blessed with Tommy. He is my soul mate and my dearest friend ever...no one comes close.  However,  he is my husband and there were times I needed Carol to let me vent about him. I told Carol  things no one else will ever know. She did the same with me.  I knew her ex-husband without ever having met Jim. I knew her life story.  She carried our secrets to her grave and that is where they would stay...

If only Carol had a 'grave'.  She was cremated and her ashes are now in Texas.  Years ago Carol convinced me cremation was the way to leave this world. It was cheaper, and I wouldn't be stuck in a dark,wet hole. Neither option appealed to me however, Tommy and I finally decided on cremation too.  A funeral is so expensive, however after this past year I am not so sure anymore about cremation.  There have been many days when I wished I could go and sit down by her tombstone and talk to her.  There is something comforting in the act of placing flowers on a grave. A grave is final but not erased from existence the way it is with cremation. All that is left of the physical body are ashes to be placed in a vase or thrown in the ocean. It is no longer a certainty for me...

I was Christmas shopping, on line yesterday,  when I stumbled upon  Carol's Christmas present.  If she were alive today I would have bought it yesterday for her.   It's called the "Crazy Cat Lady Action Figure".  It is a tall blonde doll in a ratty bathrobe with six or seven cats hanging around her. I laughed when I saw this doll. Carol would have too. I think she would have bought it for her sister Punky.  It would have eventually been known as the year of the Crazy Cat Lady Christmas dolls.  We would have had many a laugh over these presents.  Carol always referred to herself, when we talked about the future, as "being the old lady sitting on the porch with a shot gun and forty million cats running around."   I could see it then and I can see it now.

In fact the last conversation we had was about those damn cats. She had been admitted to the hospital in Jefferson City. For weeks she had been getting sicker and sicker.  In fact we had at least two arguments because I wanted to take her to the doctor or emergency room  and she refused to go. On her last morning she called me about 6:30 in the morning...crying.  She was being admitted to the hospital because she was throwing up blood. Carol was crying as  she made me promise to take care of her cats. In my usual tactful way I said, "Fuck those cats!! Carol you are too sick to worry about them!" Through tears she said, "Promise me Vicky...promise me... you have to do this!  I love you and Tommy."  I told her we loved her and I would take care of those damn cats. I heard her laugh and then she hung up the phone. She died two days later.

I miss you Carol Shea...