| The Adult Years |
| Cara always had a very wide circle of friends. She never seem to look at anyone as being to old, to young, to quiet, to wild, or of a different belief or nationality. All she ever seen, when she looked at people, were friends and someone to care about. Shortly after she graduated from school she came to me and said she had a problem. She had met a girl that she really liked. This girl was living with a man and had lived a pretty wild life style but Cara really did like her and wanted to be her friend. The problem was that everyone who knew Cara was yelling at her that she couldn't be friends with this girl. She told me that she was sure I would get a phone call telling me all about it. My feelings were that she was an adult, I had no reason not to trust her completely and I told her that it was up to her who she made friends with. They did become friends and Cara brought her home to meet me. She joined a baseball team with her and was always laughing during the last years of her life and say, "I can't believe I played baseball for the "Dog House Tavern". This was a very hard wild group of women, but Cara just remained Cara. A couple of years later she brought her friend home to live with us and got her a job in a store where she was working. At Cara funeral this same girl got up to tell this story. She has now married, has a little boy and working in a bank, but she said. it was as if she was down in this deep hole and Cara came along and just reach down and pulled her out. At 19 she decided she was tired of working in grocery stores and wanted to try something different. For Cara different meant really different and she went an got a job at Jiffy Lube. She learned how to change oil in a car, check all the fluids, tires, air filters, pcv valves, and all the things required for the job. She really wasn't to thrilled with getting dirty and it was not a job she enjoyed, but she stuck it out for a few months. Because of her height, they had to find a box for her to stand on to work inside the engines. One day she had climbed onto her box and opened the hood of a pickup, when an older man rushed over and pushed her off of the box, screaming "No girl is going to work on my Rig." He was instantly surrounded by all of the male employees and the manager closed his hood and told him to leave or he would call the police. He had no right to have touched her. It really upset Cara and she quit her job. They called and offered her the assistant managers job if she would return, but she knew this was not the kind of work she was interested in. This time she went to Food Giant and returned to a line of work that she did enjoy. Again her cicle of friend just grew bigger. Nothing is ever a waste and because of that job I watched when she went to buy a car one day pop open the hood and check to see if the car had gotten regular care. |
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| She was always on the run and always busy. One of her favorite things to do on the week ends was to go to a Under 21 club to dance. She begin to worry about where she would be able to dance when she turned 21 because she really didn't enjoy drinking. She enjoyed having a beer once in a while but she didn't enjoy the bar scene. Her friends in an effort to change her mind did take her out when she turned twenty one. When she got home she woke me up and she was in very sorry shape. I had to sit and talk to her, with cold cloths for her head until she finally fell asleep. Believe me it did nothing to change her mind. She felt that was not something she wanted to try again. She came home one day to tell me about a young man who had been into the store where she work. He had been there the day before and was carrying a baby. It had caught her attention because he was so tall and she said the little girl just seem to fit into one hand. What had impressed her was how good he was with his little girl. He had returned to the store that following day and she had ask where his baby was. He had gotten very upset and told her that was not his baby. He was just baby sitting. Her response was "Sure". She said a little later he returned with a young woman and the baby to have her, tell Cara, this was her and her husbands baby. Chris was not the father. Needless to say she knew he would return. Just as she was getting off work he had came into the store to ask her out. She told him she was busy that night and she had to work late the next night. But she had agreed to go out with him on Friday night. Christian was to tell me later that he had just gotten out of the army and was to fly home to Ohio on Saturday. But as soon as Cara said she would go out with him, he had called the airlines and cancelled his flight home. He went out looking for a job. When her Dad learned she had went out with someone who was 6'7" tall his reaction was what did you do , talk to his belly button all night. When we met Chris a couple of days later he said "No, I bend over to talk to her." A couple of months later they came to me and told me that they wanted to get married. They started out by planning a September wedding. Then the longer they talked the closer the wedding was getting. When they hit July I started to yell. They had just given me 2 months to plan a wedding for her. This, I was to learn later, was to include sewing her wedding dress, all the bridemaid's dresses and arrangeing a place at the park to have and out door wedding, which was what she wanted. |
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| To get them on the same level for the picture on the left, I had to have her on the porch and him standing on the ground below the porch. |
| During the months that Cara was dating Chris he was to learn more about her. This kind and very peaceful young lady could also stand up for her self when she felt that she needed to. They had went to play some basket ball and when they returned Chis was not in a good mood. When he left, Cara told me he had been way a head and she had no problem with him winning, until he started to brag and become arrogent about it. She had went into action and beaten him. He was not happy and never played basketball with her again. Another day they were sitting at my kitchen table and talking while I cooked. I had ask Cara to hand me an egg and she did, and then very gently laid one on Christian's head. She had reached to put it back and he said, "You wouldn't dare!" I knew as soon as I heard the words that he had made a big mistake, and as I looked up Chris had egg running down his face. About a week before they were to get married, I never knew what provoked her to do such a thing but suddenly, in front of us she made some remark about him getting fresh with her. Chris turned bright red, her father liked to choked to death and I was screaming "CARA?" She suddenly got very serious and said, "Chris, I tell my mother everything. If you don't think you can live with that, don't marry me, because I do tell my mom everything." She most certainly did not tell me everything in the years to come, but I know that she was making it clear she did reserve that right to retain the closeness in our relationship. Most of their problems she did not talk about, but she never needed to. I could see for myself. |
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| This is not much of a photo, but it is one of my favorites. She had learned of a place in Puget Sound where seals were having their babies. Cara loved seals and had a huge collection of every kind, stuffed, wood, glass, stone.... that she had started as a young child. We had walked a couple of miles to reach this area, but all of the pilings and logs in the water had mothers and baby seals. I know it was one of those days that she really enjoyed. |
| About six months after they were married came the worst day of my life. Chris had convinced Cara that he could get a better job if they moved to Ohio. I will always remember seeing her with tears streaming down her face, while I tried to assure her that it would be fine. I would be all right and she would be all right. I do question something that I did. By this time I had become aware that Chris was very insecure and he would put Cara down in an effort to make himself more important. The truly sad part about that was he never understood that in the eyes of others he became less important each time they witnessed it. He never did this in front of us but I did know from friends that it was happening. I did tell Chris it was very important that he knew something. "Cara already knew it" and I felt he should understand it also. Not to ever think when he had her in Ohio that he would have the upper hand and to be aware that if he made her miserable, all it was going to take was a call to her mama, and she would have a ticket home before he could turn around. Sometimes I think I should not have said that, but I know that given the same set of circumstances I would do the same thing today, because she did know it. From Ohio she called me every other day on our calling card. It was 7 weeks later that I got the call telling me that neither of them could find work and that as soon as their income tax return arrived they would be coming back home. It was a few days later I recieved another call asking if I would send the money and they would give me the tax return when it arrived. In Indiana the larger of their two cars broke down. They sold it on the spot and moved as many things as they possibly could. to the Honda to continue the trip. They lost over half of their belongings but Cara said, she did not care as long as she got back home. A couple days after they arrived back in town Cara had a job at the supermarket here in town. In a few months they were back on their feet and able to rent an apartment. It was only after her death that I was to realize that one of the things she had lost was her collection of seals that she had started as a young child. With in a couple of months Cara was promoted to POS manager, (Point of Sales). She now was learning to handle all of the computers and prices for the store. Because most prices are sent down by computer from the wholesale level, it meant that she now worked from 6 a.m. until 3 p.m. weekdays only. She begin to get up an hour early every morning and she would drive down to our house, put a pot of coffee on and wake me at 5 a.m. to have coffee before she went to work. After work she always dropped by for coffee and to tell me everything that had happened to her that day. What made her laugh and what had upset her. Usually always with Cara it was things that made her laugh. On the weekends she would run down with her laundry and spend the day doing it here. So there were very few days in my life that I did not wake up to Cara and coffee. It was also during these years that she became her severly handicapped brother's co guardian. She always insisted on helping with his care, learning to shave him and taking him home to go swimming with them. Even attempting once to take him to the wrestling matches with them. She tried very hard during the next 3 years not to talk about the problems in her marriage. Only coming to me a couple of times when he had overdrawn the check book. Cara always paid back any money that she had to borrow. He was really very happy around our family and often would want Cara's father to go fishing, or to a movie with him. He was always offering to help with house and car repairs. It was always Chris who would ask to move back home, when he had fouled up the bills, or more often it was because he was never happy for long anywhere and wanted to move as soon as their lease would be up. She finally moved home and told me they had already applied for a divorce. Chris wanted to move back home to Ohio, and she knew they were to far in debt for her to give up her job. Chris did work, but as with other things he also was never happy on any job and even though his employers really like him, he was a good worker, he had to always quit because he was not happy at what he was doing. So Cara moved back home and Christian loaded up the things in the apt. and moved back to Ohio. During the last 3 years of their marriage Cara stayed with one job, while Chris changed jobs over 7 times. During the next 6 months our relationship only grew closer. She loved to play games and was forever pulling me into toy stores to buy some silly toy. We spent a lot of time playing video games and she was delighted any time she could beat me. When her friends started trying to introduce her to other men she was not interested. She told me "Mom, I know what I don't want in a man, but I really don't know what I do want. There is plenty of time and I am not in a hurry." She would sometimes go to a movie with friends or go to visit them, but other then that she worked and spent her time here. As an adult Cara had begin to see me as a person as well as her mother. Cara had always had what she called her space, and you did not grab her. If I tried she would run from me and many times I would be playing with her by chasing her around her table. But often when I was just standing somewhere she would come and wrap herself around me and lay her head on my chest. It wasn't a hug with Cara. She would just stand and hold on to me. In the evening as we would be watching TV and she would come and sit at my feet and wrap her arms around me and lay her head on my stomach. I would just run my hands through her hair. Or she would bring a brush and sit at my feet and have me brush her hair. I will always be thankful that I had those years with her. |
| She was visiting a co-employee's home and this is Cara holding her grandson. |