I had wondered what to get everyone for christmas this year

Dear Kay, Bud, Don and Buddy, I had wondered what to get everyone for Christmas this year. As everyone knows, this is the first Christmas in 30 years that I have not spent with Carol and to be honest, I was not going to celebrate it at all. Kristen and Dean prevailed upon me to go through with it because Carol would want me to. So I thought, what could I give everyone?

My attempt at a gift to you the family is the Carol only I knew. The kids saw one side of her, her co-workers and many friends another, family yet another. Only I got to see Carol in the last 30 plus years as she was in all of her facets.

She had planned on retiring on the 31st of this month. That was exactly 31 years to the day that we met. She planned it that way as a surprise for me. We had plans for that night to be at Hoodoo to go to the New Years Party and celebrate. As everyone probably knows, we met on New Years Eve in 75 and she gave me her business card from College of Marin later in the evening which was the 1st of January, 1976. She even gave me a nice New Years kiss which eventually became the first of many over the years. I still have the business card and the sweater she was wearing that evening.

She made a huge impression on me as a single mom, going to school and working two jobs, one at the college and the other for Mrs. Murphy. I had never met anyone like her before. She was smart, funny and at the same time, very shy and self conscience. Even though we eventually admitted to each other that we had fallen in love almost at first sight, both of us were not ready to admit it at first. It was “I really like you a lot� right up to the day we got married. She was also afraid that I might run away when I realized she had kids or that she could no longer have children. It took a long time to calm those fears.

Everyone knows that we stayed in a tent for a few months until we got on our feet and the struggles we had with her illness. Nothing new there except that she later told me that although she knew that something was wrong with her bowel, she did not want to tell me because she was afraid I would leave her like everyone else had. That would never have happened. I loved her very much and she was my wife.

Her friends Linda and Cindy told me after she passed away that she had told them many times that my staying with her through that illness was the greatest gift I could have given her. That is funny in a way because over the years, whenever she asked what I wanted for Christmas I always responded that she was my Christmas gift. That was something I had told her at Christmas in 1979 when she recovered from a coma. The sheepskin jacket I gave her for Christmas is in the coat closet to this day. When ever my birthday came up, I reminded her that she came home on March 21st, 1980, my 28th birthday. She was my birthday present. She commented once that we were perfect for one another. One of her ways of proving that was the last 4 numbers of her social security numbers was 2152. My birthday is March 21st, 1952 or 2152.

While we lived in Idaho the real Carol started to blossom. She almost died because her doctors in California gave her no choices and then abandoned or “dumped” her onto USCF where she stayed for 7 months. In Idaho, she chose a young doctor, Mark Frasier, over the objections of the old school doctors who thought it was their right to treat her.

He literally saved her life. He was not afraid to use dialysis techniques not in vogue by the old guys and those made the difference in keeping her alive. It was a lesson she never forgot. She also met Sister Pauline. Like her, Sister Pauline was on dialysis. She was about 82 or so. Carol and she spent the hours talking about a lot of things including life after death. It helped Carol very much to talk about things like that with her. Sister Pauline was never judgmental. We both liked her and her death the next year was hard on Carol. In the cabinet where we keep the silverware, there is a Hummel of Mary given to Carol by Sister Pauline. It was one of her prized possessions and will be given to the kids when I die.

While we lived in Idaho, Carol started going to church again in a little church in Spirit Lake. She even convinced me to attend once so I could see where she went to worship. It was good to see her feel comfortable in church again although as an Atheist I never attend. She told me that she had stopped going because she thought God had punished her when Dean was born with a birth defect. She lived with that guilt her entire life. As smart and intelligent as she was, she could never really hide the guilt she felt although it was a guilt that was a falsehood. She had been led to believe that she was to blame for a natural birth defect because she made a mistake in life. I would try to counter that whenever it came up with who bore the guilt of her birth defect, Crohns Disease which is also a genetic defect. She never saw the truth of the argument. Whenever Dean would have to see the doctor or comment about his leg, I could see the pain in her face, even up to her death. She often would follow up with a comment such as “If only I had drank more milk, or ate better”. She never overcame the guilt. It was an unfair burden she did not deserve and one that caused her much stress and pain in life.

While in Idaho, she would drift for hours on a raft in the water watching the fish below or just enjoying the sun on her. It was a good time for her and us. She was recovering her health, the kids were becoming more comfortable with us as a family again and she was growing as a person. She gained more and more confidence in her ability to do things.

She even helped Coach Kristen and Dean in Baseball and softball. She was becoming the woman she always was but had hidden from everyone, including herself.

When my work took me to Oregon during the recession in 81 in Idaho, we were lucky enough to find a place in Salem which was much smaller then. Again we went to a new Dialysis center and again she was told who her doctor was going to be. Again, Carol said no and she would pick her own. She picked Dr. Stors in Salem and he was her nephrologist for 25 years. After a few months we started dicussing a transplant. She was very scared of going that route because she did not want to lose a transplant. In those days transplants were not routine as they are today. After several meetings at OHSU and discussions at home, she chose to have one. She was on the waiting list for 1 week. Most people were on the list for years. The transplant she received was an almost perfect genetic match. Almost as if it was a relative. They lived together for over 25 years in almost perfect harmony. She only had one small rejection episode in the beginning and then that was it.

Because of the medication she was taking, she started projects and then stopped.

Prednisone munchies and the related activities were a lot of fun to watch although several pieces of furniture she started to refinish took almost 6 years to be completed. When she had recovered her strength she wanted to continue her education. For two years she commuted to Portland for school and managed to finish at the top of her class. Many a night she would come home, grab a snack and disappear into the bedroom to study, never to be seen until the week-end. Carol never stopped her studies. Even while working she learned new techniques and passed them on or developed them for Kaiser herself and then these became standard practices in the labs. She was their “Rock” as they say. She was also too much of a perfectionist.

There were times when she would come home and fret about something at the lab and then either call someone to double check, or leave the house to go back to work, sometimes for hours because something “might” be wrong. Almost every time, nothing was wrong but she would find something else to do or help out someone at the lab. It has since taken two people to try to do her job at Skyline labs.

Over the years she became an artist of sorts. I have all of her Duck paintings and drawings in my office. She enjoyed it although she became so busy at home with the house that painting went by the wayside for awhile. She had planned on putting up either a Yurt or cedar building in the back this summer to become her art studio. Her toll paintings and bird houses I kept even when she tried to sell them at garage sales. She called me a packrat but upstairs in the attic are all of the cards we have received over the years that she kept upstairs, the cards from me to her, gifts we exchanged and even Innie & Minnie, the first gift I gave her for Valentines, 1976. Two mice with their arms around each other. A bit worse for wear but still together almost 31 years later. Her bronzed baby shoes are in a shadow box she made and the kid’s baby blankets and things are still upstairs along with her grandmother’s quilt. For someone who accused me of keeping things, she was a great one to talk. One day these will all find their way to Dean & Kristen and I can hope that they will treasure them as much as Carol and I have.

Carol once found a bird egg and kept it warm, hatched it and hand fed Timothy until he was released a year later. She loved to groom Kody and at one time wanted to make a sweater out of her hair. That changed once it got wet and then it smelled.

She loved to garden which should surprise no one. But she was good at it. She could visualize something and make it come to life. It was amazing to watch her wear my rain gear, three sizes to large and folded up so she could wear it. She would be out in the garden, rain or shine, shovel and cutters in hand. Whenever she needed something done such as digging a hole, you were drafted to do it. It mattered not if you watching the last 30 seconds of a game or trying to cook dinner. If she wanted it done, it was done.

When you went shopping at Home Depot you got an education from her. She knew the names of almost every plant, how it did and where it would go. It was amazing to me and I would just watch the workers who were supposed to know about these things listen to Carol and then they would get the education. When we would go shopping she would ambush me. There was always a reason to shop with Carol. She would say, lets stop at Costco and we would. I always knew after all these years that she would show me something she had already seen and already had a place for it picked out. That is how a Grandfather Clock managed to show up, with Larry’s help, at the house one day. It was one of Carol’s favorite things and still sits in the back room chiming away.

Over the years she managed to adopt an antique sofa which has been dyed four times and which was finally due to be reupholstered this coming year along with two chairs. I think she had run out of colors to dye the poor sofa. She had planned on doing the work herself but I said no. Pay a professional to do it. That is one reason it had not been done.

She never wanted to spend the money. She always lived throughout our marriage with the idea that she had been poor when she was young. It was a theme throughout our marriage. Whenever she went shopping for clothing, she would buy several of the items she liked because she would tell me “when I was younger I only got two pairs of shoes and only a few pieces of clothing for school and play”. I never knew if it was true or not, only that it affected her over our 30 years together. I gave her several thousand dollars this past summer for the roof to be replaced which it turned out did not need to be replaced. She went shopping for clothing instead with part of it. She ended up buying 6 or 7 pairs of shoes, a couple were duplicates because she used that “when I was young” logic. I never cared one way or the other about her spending money on what made her happy. It just saddened me to see my beautiful and intelligent wife being affected by her past in the present.

Over the past 9 years, since we purchased the house, she blossomed even more. She was passionate about the house and everywhere you look you see her and her taste and her touch. She would spend hours cutting out articles in magazines which then were transformed into her vision for the house. She picked the colors for the house interior and did most of the painting herself since I was not “up to snuff” as a painter. It was in her blood she used to say. When we put the front walkway and porch in, it was from a magazine which prompted the walkway and me doing the lifting which was transformed into a walkway that is envied and commented on by those in the neighborhood.

Over the years her health would go between great and poor. She never got over the “dialysis” mentality of drinking too much water and she would become dehydrated. This would prompt a visit to Kaiser to have fluids put in. She also avoided crowds for fear of getting sick. She had a very hard time when she became ill and I spent a few nights on the sofa when I was sick to avoid her catching my colds. It was hard for me because early in our marriage we went to the show all the time. Now Kristen went with me because Carol did not want to be exposed to illnesses. I cannot blame her but movies without her were not the same. She made a few exceptions, Harry Potter, Lord of the Ring movies and once in awhile a cartoon or love story. She did learn to ski which led me to learn how to snowboard since my attempts at skiing almost got me killed and damaged a tree that I hit.

As always, she was elegant when she skied and a perfectionist. She would chastise herself if she made a mistake skiing and god help anyone if they should get caught by a snow snake which would make her fall. The funny part about that was, when she did fall, it was an elegant fall. No flying ski poles, no skis running down the hill and never a hair out place. She learned Scuba and how to raft a bit. By rafting I mean a rubber raft floating down the North Fork at 1 mile an hour.

She was a perfectionist and as she got older it became a bit worse. Sometimes it was hard for everyone but I understood her. In her world, if anything was out of place it had to be made right before she could relax. That applied to everything but her space which was always a mess! And I loved her for it. She was a contradiction but she never understood it. She smoked too much but over the years she had cut back to ½ a pack a day or so.

Down quite a bit from 2 backs when we first married. It helped her nerves she would say to me. She could not argue too much about it because I quit smoking 25 years ago. But she was kind enough to smoke outside or not blow smoke into my fact too often except when she teased me. She would tell people I took care of her, but neglect to tell them she took care of me. She would always look after me. When I had that asthma attack in 2002, I broke four ribs coughing and I was not given much of a chance by doctors to survive, it was that bad. Carol nursed me through it. She never let on that she was worried about me.

She just took control of my care and made sure I made it through despite the doctor’s warnings about my chances. She nagged me about my blood pressure medication and my reading glasses.

Last year, after 5 years of my asking her to cut back her hours, she finally did and she was a happier, younger person for it. She was relaxed and you could see it in her face, her attitude and the way she carried herself. Her excuse for not cutting back her hours were she wanted to finish the house. I kept reminding her that the house would get done sooner if she spent more time there. She finally did cut back and she was finally going to retire this year after almost 20 years at Kaiser.

Carol was a lot of things, elegant, classy, funny, creative, gentle, loving, caring, humble and nitpicking. But she was my Carol Eve and I love her for everything she was while alive and everything she will be to me until my death. Remember that here in Oregon she found herself finally. She was respected, loved and had so many friends. I have had many of her fellow workers come up to me and tell me stories about her and many others tell me they could not bear to go to her services because they loved her so.

Last evening I went shopping for Christmas items. Along the way to Sees Candies to buy Carol a box of her traditional Walnut fudge, I ran into the owner of the local Sees who has known Carol & I for over 20 years. She had heard from a customer, a former coworker of Carols that she had passed away. She put her arm into mine and walked me to Sees. When I got there, she went behind the counter and put the candy together for me.

She knew exactly what Carol got every year at Christmas since we went in together to get the candy. That is the impression my beloved wife made on people, an everlasting impression that people will remember for a very long time.

We are almost finished with the pond, just waiting for a break in the weather, this summer a new front wall will be built and over the next several years we will finish what Carol & I talked about doing to our home. While she was recovering from her back injury this summer we had a chance to talk about a lot of things since I took several weeks off to spend time at home. I want you all to know that she was happy and content. I asked her what else we needed to get done this summer to the house so she could relax. She told me that the house was almost done. Just little things like the pond expansion. That of course led to Kristen & I digging it. She went on to let me know that she had almost everything she ever wanted. We had just purchased two new rugs she wanted and then she managed to burn one with an Iron. Every time I look at the small iron mark it brings a smile to my face. She tried so hard to be perfect and she did not like that mark but it was typical Carol.

I told her I wished I had been a better husband to her, gave her more things in life. Carol just put her hand on mine and told me I was the best husband anyone could ever ask for and she was happy and in love with me even if I was a slob. A lot of people are married for a lot of years, but the family should know that Carol and I were still sweethearts.

Older and we both had a few more wrinkles but we were still sweethearts. Kay and Bud, you raised a wonderful daughter. A great mother to our children, a loved friend to many and the love of my life. Buddy and Don, your sister loved you dearly and worried about the both of you. Don’t let time dim your memory of her. Her friends here call us to remind us that they still think of her and love her. I never knew that Carol would talk about me at work to co-workers. She would tell of our adventures and mishaps. Several of her good friends told me that she was happy and that is how I found out about a lot of things she never shared with me which included telling almost everyone she met that I was making more then she did (big deal), that I wanted her to retire and that she loved me. It was always hard for Carol to say how she felt to people. When she died, Kristen was crying in the living room wishing Carol had told her she loved her more often. It wasn’t her way. She did that in other ways as many do. A touch there, and hand on yours

here and a whisper in your ear. I think of Carol Eve many times every day and every night. She will be my last thought in life when my time comes. And that is a comforting thought for me. She was a comfort in life to many especially me. I can think of nothing better when it is my time then to have thoughts of her comforting my passing.

Dean and Kristen miss their mother sorely. I know everyone in the family does. She touched the hearts of many and left her mark on them. The world is a dimmer place without her. But she will live on in her garden, the house, the kids and grandkids.

Because Dean & Kristen wanted carry on her Christmas traditions is why we are having a Christmas at our at all this year. So Christmas Eve we will have Dean & his family over the house, Christmas day Kristen & I will try to cook dinner for 3 and open the presents purchased for Carol. I know she would be pleased.

Merry Christmas