Grief and Gratitude

Our friend Carol’s eight plus months of positivity and hope met the dark reality of aggressive glioblastoma this week. She passed on in a rapid decline that appeared elegantly graceful from a distance. 

Of course, we weren’t there and can only imagine all her family managed in that last week or so. What we do know is that last week, Carol was on our weekly zoom telling us of the gifts she bought for her grandchildren and telling us she wanted to get to Ireland to see a family castle they had just located. 

She wasn’t imagining any of that - it was all true. Their family traces back to the Scots-Irish who fought during the revolutionary war. And yes, her grandchildren will be getting gifts from grandma. Five days later, she was gone. 

Between the waves of grief of the past few days are deep wells of gratitude for the life that was Carol’s. And for all the memories we can call on as we each figure out how to honor and celebrate the woman she is. 

We met on our freshman hall in Bostwick 2B of Wake Forest University. I was from up north, a Yankee, and she was from Tar Heel, North Carolina, boasting a population of a little more than 90 people. Two very different worlds. And it never mattered.

My first memories involve her laugh. Infectious, inviting, and joy on full display. Her drawl was like warm honey and her deep curiosity was probing, thoughtful, and deeply sincere. That first year of college is somewhat a blur in my memory, punctuated by photos that are equally blurry of young women having a great time. 

Carol was the one who introduced me to friends of hers on the lower level of Bostwick who would open their windows for us to sneak back into the dorm “after hours”. Wake in 1974 had hours for girls and not for boys, and we knew that was fundamentally unfair so ignored the restrictions when we were having fun. We weren’t particularly wild. We just didn’t fit the Southern Baptist definitions of young ladies. Still not sure I fully understand what they actually were in that era.

When each of our roommates made different plans for sophomore year, Carol and I quickly decided to room together as we moved to “New Dorm”. 

As happens in college, I learned as much from my roommate as I did in class. I went home with her to Tar Heel, and she introduced me to boiled (or bolled) peanuts and her mother, a beautiful and kind woman. That’s where her open mindedness and curiosity came from. Her particular brilliance was her own. 

Even though she decided to transfer to UNC Chapel Hill the next year, I never took it personally - it was a financial decision that turned out to be fortuitous as that’s where she met her beshert, or soulmate, Reese.

We stayed connected through college - going to visit Chapel Hill, to the beach - and then we all graduated, heading off in different directions through the 1980s. It’s hard to even imagine now, but that was before the Internet - so keeping in touch required actually dialing a phone or writing and mailing a letter. We did some of that - but each of us got busy with building careers and families until we hit our 40s. 

Then one of our friends from Bostwick 2B set up a spa weekend for “the girls” in Florida. That was the first time I spent uninterrupted time with Carol and the connection was just as deep as it had been decades before. We stayed in touch after that, arranging gatherings every few years with phone calls, and letters back and forth until finally the Internet caught up with our desire to connect. 

And since the pandemic, we’ve had our weekly zoom calls. 

Professionally, Carol reinvented herself repeatedly. She did advertising, sales, got her MBA and did real estate, then taught herself how to stage homes and became a leader in the industry wherever she landed. Her curiosity and drive were evident in her own homes that were beautifully laid out even during the years of raising two young men actively engaged in school and community activities throughout their childhoods. 

Carol is the one who kept us up to date on trends and new products. She loved looking for products that solved problems for us. Carol is the one who didn’t forget anything - ever. 

When she was diagnosed with glioblastoma in March - and a particularly aggressive one at that - she greeted the diagnosis with determination and what we dubbed resilient hope. And that became our role as well - to mirror her positivity and celebrate meaningful moments with her despite an impending expiration date.  

That may be one of the most profound lessons I’ve learned from my friend Carol. She showed that life is to be lived with gusto and purpose. Since March, she’s traveled with and to her family, celebrated holidays and birthdays and weddings, hosted showers and gatherings of “the girls”, making trips to Duke for treatments into sales pitches for her staging work and generally lived large. And when her tumors became multifocal and uncontrolled, she left quickly.

We shall always celebrate the woman we’ll always cherish.