[Oe List ...] Kate St. Clair

[Shelley Hahn]

Hi Bill & Barb,

I have forwarded your message to Andy.  I'm certain he will appreciate your 
words and thoughts.  Hope you are both well.  I understand I'll be seeing you 
in August--if not before.  Look forward to it!

Shelley

Quoting William Alerding <walerding at igc.org>:

> 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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> 
> 
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