A CHALLENGING YEAR con't from FRONT PAGE A CHALLENGING YEAR continued
spent extra hours and money on her students.
She retired from teaching school in 2007, and
continued more fully her ministry of writing
letters of encouragement. She called her letters
“Envelope Hugs.” (Read some of her writings at
carolecrain.blogspot.com, including her story
about Envelope Hugs.)
On Dec. 4, 2012, Carol felt sick and asked
me to take a day off from work. At midmorning,
she called from our bathroom. “I can’t stand
up,” she said. I took her hand; she sank to the
floor; and I called 911. “Most people don’t make
it to the hospital in your condition,” said Dr.
Michael Pritchett, a pulmonologist affiliated
with FirstHealth Moore Regional Hospital. A
blood clot had moved from Carol’s leg and burst
in her lungs, causing pulmonary hypertension
(high blood pressure in the lungs). Dr. Pritchett
administered a “clot busting” drug. “We don’t
give this medicine to anyone unless they’d die if
they didn’t get it,” he said. I prayed and watched
that concoction drip into Carol’s bloodstream.
She responded well to the treatment, Dr.
Pritchett said.
Mrs. Carol Crain, early 1970's.
Gulistan Carpet went bankrupt, and I retired
from that company on Jan. 10, 2013. Our lives
had changed greatly.
On Oct. 17, 2017, Carol entered FirstHealth
Hospital with congestive heart failure. Carol
had learned that because high blood pressure
in her lungs caused the right ventricle of her
heart to work hard, she’d someday probably
die of heart failure. After I retired, we had
remained in Southern Pines because of Carol’s
medical connections, but she felt, during this
2017 hospital stay, that we should move back to
In April 1989, less than a year after moving
to NC, I left Karastan and hired with JPS Carpet
(later called Gulistan Carpet) in Aberdeen
NC. Our daughters were 16 and 11, and our
relocations messed with their lives. Plus, they
lost two grandparents (my parents both died
that year).
I began at JPS in April and Carol (a teacher)
and the kids stayed in Kernersville to finish the
school year. In early April, Carolyn McDonald,
the real estate agent who sold our house to us
less than a year before, got to sell it again. She
called Carol the day after our house went on
the market. “I’ve got good news and bad news,”
Carolyn said. “The good news is a couple wants
to buy your house. The bad news is they want
you out, right now!”
Carol said, “We can do that.” She found one
bedroom in a house where nursing students
lived. She and our daughters shared a room, and
they shared a bathroom with a young lady. They
made-do with close quarters for two months
before joining me in Southern Pines. Carol was
always a strong, can-do kind of person.
After moving to Moore County, Carol taught
at West End Elementary, Aberdeen Elementary,
and Hoffman Elementary. She held students
accountable, and offenders had to copy her
“responsibility chart.” Here is that statement
Carol found in a magazine: “Responsibility is
doing what needs to be done, when it needs
to be done, whether you feel like it or not, and
without having to be told over and over to do
it.” Some former students have told her they
remember well the “responsibility chart,” and a
few said they teach it to their children. A soldier
who had been Carol’s student said he, when put
in charge of physical training for underlings,
had them repeating the “responsibility chart.”
Some trainees asked, “Where’d you get that?” He
said, “From my fifth-grade teacher in NC.” Carol
A CHALLENGING YEAR continued
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Carol & Steve Crain with daughter Janelle.
Greenville, SC. Our older daughter Janelle Smith
and her husband Terry live in nearby Taylors,
SC. I said, “We’re almost too old to move.” On
Oct. 21, Sat., Carol exited FirstHealth’s Reid
Heart Center. We closed on our Taylors house on
Dec. 15. Mayflower moved us to Taylors on Jan.
10, 2018, and we began the most stressful year
of our lives.
We sold our Southern Pines home on March
27, and Carol entered Greer Memorial Hospital
on May 3. She spent May 3-25 at National Health
Care rehab. We celebrated 48 years of marriage
on Aug. 20, 2018. She spent Sept. 11-13, Oct. 28-
31, and Nov. 3-14 in Greer Hospital. She stayed
Nov. 14-Dec.13 at North Greenville Hospital,
LTACH (long tern acute care hospital). Carol
was glad to be home during Christmas and New
Year’s Day 2019.
10:30 p.m., Wed., Jan. 02, 2019: Carol said,
“I need to go to the hospital.” An ambulance
took her to Greer Hospital. One blood pressure
reading showed 71/27.
Thurs., Jan. 3: Dr. Armin Meyer, Carol’s SC
pulmonologist, told her he’d done all he could
do and recommended hospice care. Carol was
“being kept alive” by medicines that raised her
blood pressure while fluid was being taken
from her body by diuretics. For years, Carol had
classic lymphedema in her legs.
Mon., Jan. 07: Dr. Meyer took Carol off all
sustaining medicines, and she was transported
to Hospice House of the Carolina Foothills,
Landrum, SC. We arrived before 5:00 pm. The
admitting nurse said, “We give only comfort
medications here.” During her hospice house
stay, Carol received “squirts of morphine
derivative” as needed for discomfort. “Don’t
leave me here in this place by myself,” Carol
said. “I won’t,” I said. I slept on a couch near her.
Carol said, “I tried so hard.” I said, “Yes, you did,
but your heart is wearing out.”
Tues., Jan. 08: Our daughter Janelle and her
husband Terry visited. Carol’s blood pressure
measured 106/70.
Wed., Jan. 09: Carol took Phenergan for gas
pains at 4:00 am. Janelle and Terry returned.
Carol took off her engagement and wedding
rings and handed them to Janelle. Tears flowed,
but Carol shed no tears. I think the “distancing”
I’d read about was taking place inside Carol, and
she was tired. Carol had told me she planned
to give those rings to Janelle. That night, I sat
beside Carol and cried and told her how much I
was going to miss her. She didn’t cry but seemed
peaceful as she held my hand. I prayed for Carol
and, for a while, watched her sleep.
Thurs., Jan. 10 (our 1-year anniversary
of moving to Taylors): Visitors came: Donna
Tidwell, Jan and Jerry Brown (from GA), Sherry
Sturm, Connie and Don Rogers (from Pinehurst,
NC), Pastor Bill Montgomery (age 88), and
Janelle. Carol had lapsed into sleep by nightfall.
I called Janet Rice, Carol’s longtime friend.
Janet talked to Carol by cellphone. Carol didn’t
respond, but I think she heard Janet.
Friday, Jan. 11: Carol appeared unconscious.
Sherry Sturm visited. Pastor Jerry and Jan Brown
returned and at 12:10 p.m., we three sat at
Carol’s bed. Jan suggested singing hymns. We
sang three songs, and Jerry said, “I don’t think
she’s breathing. I went for the nurse. She put her
stethoscope on Carol, and after a long silence,
the young nurse said, “There’s no heartbeat.”
Carol had slipped out peacefully around 12:20
p.m., at age 71. Janelle and Terry arrived just
after Carol passed on. The nurse asked us to sit
in a family room. Bob Griffith of Wood Mortuary,
Greer, SC., arrived to transport Carol’s body.
We held Carol’s funeral service at noon, Wed.,
Jan. 16, 2019, at Wood Mortuary Chapel, Greer,
SC. Her body rests in nearby Hillcrest Memorial
Gardens.
Carol sometimes sang a song she wrote that
is based on St. Paul’s statement, “To be absent
from the body is to be present with the Lord.”
Often, in my mind, I hear Carol’s voice singing
that song. Waves of grief frequently hit me. In a
grocery store, I saw a kind of coconut cake Carol
liked. Tears came. We grew even closer as Carol
depended greatly on me during the last year of
her life — the most challenging year of our lives.☐
p.26 The Pinehurst Gazette, Inc. No. 134
/carolecrain.blogspot.com
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