[Oe List ...] Kate St. Clair

[William Alerding]

Please forward the deep sorrow of the Alerding family to Andy about 
Kate St. Clair's passing. We have such fond memories of her. It is 
difficult to realize that she is no long with us.

Bill and Barb

On Feb 24, 2005, at 10:13 AM, Shelley Hahn wrote:

> Andy St. Clair has asked me to post to the OE list the message that he 
> posted
> to the 2nd Generation email list last week.  This message appeared in 
> the wee
> hours of Thursday, Feb 17th, but I think Kate actually passed away on
> Wednesday the 16th.
>
> If anyone would like to contact Andy, his address is 7820 N 6th St, 
> Phoenix
> AZ, 85020.  I don't know Alex's address, but I'm sure Andy would share 
> any
> messages with his brother.
>
> Here is Andy's message:
>
>> My mom died today. She had been very sick since the beginning of the
>> year- first a diagnosis of emphysema (news she celebrated, in her Kate
>> way, with a cigarette), then a heart attack in September, and lastly a
>> stroke this past Thursday.
>>
>> She had been on hospice care for the last month at a private care home
>> about 100 yards from my house. My boys, Mitchell and Tom, got to see 
>> her
>> before we lost her to the morphine haze. She squeezed their hands in 
>> her
>> one good one. Then she just sort of disappeared into the fog. That was
>> Friday. Mitchell came over and played her a song he remembered from my
>> dad's funeral on his guitar and they both brought her a valentine
>> balloon which was still floating brightly and hopefully in her room
>> today. She held on for the week without food or water, subsisting on 
>> the
>> morphine and my reading aloud to her. The Lord of the Rings. I am not 
>> a
>> bedside-vigil kind of guy, but it turns out I kind of am.
>>
>> Kim asked me last night if I had ever told her she could die, that it
>> was okay to go. I hadn't. It seemed so obvious. Like, how couldn't she
>> know? I mean, everybody else knew it was time, right? But I went over
>> today and told her. She believes in heaven, so I believed with her and
>> told her dad was waiting, your love is waiting. Go. We'll be okay. The
>> boys will be okay and they'll remember you. I remembered what Mark 
>> Doty
>> said to his lover when his lover was dying- all the love in the world
>> goes with you. All the love in the world, I told her. And she died.
>> Damn. She died less than an hour later.
>>
>> It was just me and her. I held her hand. Her breath came less 
>> frequently
>> until it stopped, and I held her hand and watched the pulse in her 
>> neck
>> slow, flutter, and stop.
>>
>> All the love in the world.  That's what I have.
>>
>> Andy
>
>
> -- 
>
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