Excerpts from the Eulogy By Susan Cavitch
I have never experienced the passing of friend or even family who felt more like a sister. They say that life goes on, but life for me will never be the same without Carolyn.
It was over ten years ago when she announced to me that I really had to eulogize her one day. I was speechless before I laughed awkwardly, told her that of course I would, and shooed away the topic. At that time, Carolyn was healthy.
When do eulogies ever come up in normal conversation, and yet this was vintage Carolyn. What she meant, truly in a humble fashion, was, “You have known me well, and we’ve journeyed this life intimately, so you really are someone who can talk about me.” Who is bold enough to let herself be vulnerable and transparent enough to let it all shine through? In a word: Carolyn. One of a kind Carolyn Wells Dandurand.
My very first recollection of Carolyn is a perfect example of the bold and authentic woman. It was clear that this woman was comfortable in her skin and did not require a breaking in period. This was the start of a long and beautiful friendship of Carolyn telling me like it was and filling my life with color.
Carolyn loved being surrounded by people and interacting with them. I mean total engagement - frog stuck on glass kind of captivation. When she was talking to you, she was 100% immersed in that conversation.
What permitted Carolyn to shine was her sheer inability to be anyone other than who she was. She felt free to be herself and shine as an individual with texture and color. Carolyn was that she could not fake a thing. She was wholly incapable of deception.
Carolyn used to say that people are in her life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. Her interactions crossed all manmade barriers: race, religion, personality, sexual orientation, belief, and opinion. People were her treasures.
Carolyn told me last August 27, the day she learned that she was terminally ill, that the hardest part of those early weeks was beginning the process of erasing herself from people’s lives. Fortunately, these last ten months permitted Carolyn to see that her life is written indelibly onto the lives of those she touched.
Lauren, David, Sue, and Kathy have always given Carolyn the love and protection of family. David has always been a deeply kind and loving son. There wasn’t a time David came to town since moving from Memphis when he did not walk in the door and ask Carolyn for a list of honey-dos.
Kathy Wells, Carolyn’s mother, and Sue Gautsch, her sister, never waited to be asked before shooting to Memphis any time Carolyn needed them over these last thirty years.
And Lauren, you have been your mom’s heart and soul over this last year. Her daughter, best friend, and nurse three hundred days in a row. When medications left her unable to drive, you drove your mom wherever she wanted to go, including loads of visits to see Chase and Marcie at the barn.
There is something powerfully bittersweet about seeing a strong person physically weaken and seeing her child gracefully step in and bear the extra weight. It is the solemn rhythm of life.
When morphine was needed and Carolyn could no longer drive, she asked Lauren for a ride to the gym so she could teach her personal fitness class. As she said to me, “I’m going to hurt the same at home as I will at the gym, so I might as well get out where I can make a difference.”
After her diagnosis, Carolyn fox-hunted for three months, traveled to Knoxville to see David and Melissa and to New Jersey to see Sue, took a friend up on an invitation to a cabin in Arkansas, and fostered and trained two rescued puppies with Sue, walking them in her robe and slippers in the rain at 6am. One of those pups is today Sue’s buddy, Jesse. Also side by side with Sue in New Jersey, and while relying on narcotics to help with pain, Carolyn rescued Simon, a starving horse. The owners had stopped feeding this gorgeous $250,000 show horse. There was no hay and grain. Ice was not being chipped off the water trough, so there was no water. The barn had grown decrepit. Simon needed to gain three or four hundred pounds and there were medical issues. He needed shoeing so badly that he hobbled. Carolyn and Sue begged the owner to let them take the horse. I recall the joy and relief in Carolyn’s voice when she told me that Simon had just spent his first night of deliverance in a clean stall with fresh food and water. Sue used her phone to video Carolyn in the center of the ring, trotting Simon on a lunge line round and round to strengthen him. I watch this video in amazement. Most people on morphine and hydrocodone are sleeping; Carolyn was out there in jeans and boots saving a horse!
Knowing that Simon was finally safe and on the mend, Carolyn could leave a week later with Sue and Lauren for Lake Placid to cross-country ski and ice-skate. Carolyn determined to find pearls in every single day, and those pearls always materialized.
Humor was integral. I’ll never forget the time, soon after her diagnosis, when Carolyn told me that she was “out of money, out of insurance, and out of time.”
Carolyn and her friend, Eddie, both living with pancreatic cancer, were staring up a hill during one Saturday morning fox hunt. Carolyn yelled out to Eddie, “Let’s hit it!” and together, they galloped up that hill. They were both seriously ill but they could not have felt more alive.
As one part of her unfinished business, Carolyn helped David purge decades of accumulation stored in the attic. Carolyn found some Adirondack chairs that she wanted to give away rather than sell, so she left the chairs at the foot of her driveway for any interested passerby. A neighbor down the street whom Carolyn had not met saw the furniture and stopped to ask if she was moving. Carolyn’s reply: “Yes, to higher ground.”
Carolyn the advocate who did our unpleasant jobs and took the heat. Carolyn gave voice to the silent: animals, children, and the elderly. If horse care was sub-par, she would not hesitate to bring it to the attention of neighbors or barn owners, risking being irritating, gossiped about, or even ostracized, in order to right a wrong. She could live with being judged for sticking her nose where it did not belong, but she could not rest on her hands while animals or people lived in deplorable conditions.
Carolyn especially loved her sunset rides as the weather grew warmer. As she put it, “Sitting high on Chase, feeling his familiar, supportive form beneath me and galloping through that gorgeous property with the wind blowing in my face and the sun setting, I forgot that I was dying.”
Carolyn journeyed the hard times and grew tender, not tough.
Soon after Carolyn was diagnosed, Lauren told Carolyn something that warmed her heart and lifted her spirits. She told Carolyn, “Mom, I feel like you haven’t yet begun to gallop … that because you are rejecting debilitating treatments, you’ll remain strong and eager enough to enjoy every fresh day, and then, you will gallop to heaven.” Lauren’s words wound up prophetic. Carolyn lived more life in a day while dying than many of us live in our primes, and then, fully accepting, with eternal hope, she galloped Home.
I have never experienced the passing of friend or even family who felt more like a sister. They say that life goes on, but life for me will never be the same without Carolyn.
It was over ten years ago when she announced to me that I really had to eulogize her one day. I was speechless before I laughed awkwardly, told her that of course I would, and shooed away the topic. At that time, Carolyn was healthy.
When do eulogies ever come up in normal conversation, and yet this was vintage Carolyn. What she meant, truly in a humble fashion, was, “You have known me well, and we’ve journeyed this life intimately, so you really are someone who can talk about me.” Who is bold enough to let herself be vulnerable and transparent enough to let it all shine through? In a word: Carolyn. One of a kind Carolyn Wells Dandurand.
My very first recollection of Carolyn is a perfect example of the bold and authentic woman. It was clear that this woman was comfortable in her skin and did not require a breaking in period. This was the start of a long and beautiful friendship of Carolyn telling me like it was and filling my life with color.
Carolyn loved being surrounded by people and interacting with them. I mean total engagement - frog stuck on glass kind of captivation. When she was talking to you, she was 100% immersed in that conversation.
What permitted Carolyn to shine was her sheer inability to be anyone other than who she was. She felt free to be herself and shine as an individual with texture and color. Carolyn was that she could not fake a thing. She was wholly incapable of deception.
Carolyn used to say that people are in her life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. Her interactions crossed all manmade barriers: race, religion, personality, sexual orientation, belief, and opinion. People were her treasures.
Carolyn told me last August 27, the day she learned that she was terminally ill, that the hardest part of those early weeks was beginning the process of erasing herself from people’s lives. Fortunately, these last ten months permitted Carolyn to see that her life is written indelibly onto the lives of those she touched.
Lauren, David, Sue, and Kathy have always given Carolyn the love and protection of family. David has always been a deeply kind and loving son. There wasn’t a time David came to town since moving from Memphis when he did not walk in the door and ask Carolyn for a list of honey-dos.
Kathy Wells, Carolyn’s mother, and Sue Gautsch, her sister, never waited to be asked before shooting to Memphis any time Carolyn needed them over these last thirty years.
And Lauren, you have been your mom’s heart and soul over this last year. Her daughter, best friend, and nurse three hundred days in a row. When medications left her unable to drive, you drove your mom wherever she wanted to go, including loads of visits to see Chase and Marcie at the barn.
There is something powerfully bittersweet about seeing a strong person physically weaken and seeing her child gracefully step in and bear the extra weight. It is the solemn rhythm of life.
When morphine was needed and Carolyn could no longer drive, she asked Lauren for a ride to the gym so she could teach her personal fitness class. As she said to me, “I’m going to hurt the same at home as I will at the gym, so I might as well get out where I can make a difference.”
After her diagnosis, Carolyn fox-hunted for three months, traveled to Knoxville to see David and Melissa and to New Jersey to see Sue, took a friend up on an invitation to a cabin in Arkansas, and fostered and trained two rescued puppies with Sue, walking them in her robe and slippers in the rain at 6am. One of those pups is today Sue’s buddy, Jesse. Also side by side with Sue in New Jersey, and while relying on narcotics to help with pain, Carolyn rescued Simon, a starving horse. The owners had stopped feeding this gorgeous $250,000 show horse. There was no hay and grain. Ice was not being chipped off the water trough, so there was no water. The barn had grown decrepit. Simon needed to gain three or four hundred pounds and there were medical issues. He needed shoeing so badly that he hobbled. Carolyn and Sue begged the owner to let them take the horse. I recall the joy and relief in Carolyn’s voice when she told me that Simon had just spent his first night of deliverance in a clean stall with fresh food and water. Sue used her phone to video Carolyn in the center of the ring, trotting Simon on a lunge line round and round to strengthen him. I watch this video in amazement. Most people on morphine and hydrocodone are sleeping; Carolyn was out there in jeans and boots saving a horse!
Knowing that Simon was finally safe and on the mend, Carolyn could leave a week later with Sue and Lauren for Lake Placid to cross-country ski and ice-skate. Carolyn determined to find pearls in every single day, and those pearls always materialized.
Humor was integral. I’ll never forget the time, soon after her diagnosis, when Carolyn told me that she was “out of money, out of insurance, and out of time.”
Carolyn and her friend, Eddie, both living with pancreatic cancer, were staring up a hill during one Saturday morning fox hunt. Carolyn yelled out to Eddie, “Let’s hit it!” and together, they galloped up that hill. They were both seriously ill but they could not have felt more alive.
As one part of her unfinished business, Carolyn helped David purge decades of accumulation stored in the attic. Carolyn found some Adirondack chairs that she wanted to give away rather than sell, so she left the chairs at the foot of her driveway for any interested passerby. A neighbor down the street whom Carolyn had not met saw the furniture and stopped to ask if she was moving. Carolyn’s reply: “Yes, to higher ground.”
Carolyn the advocate who did our unpleasant jobs and took the heat. Carolyn gave voice to the silent: animals, children, and the elderly. If horse care was sub-par, she would not hesitate to bring it to the attention of neighbors or barn owners, risking being irritating, gossiped about, or even ostracized, in order to right a wrong. She could live with being judged for sticking her nose where it did not belong, but she could not rest on her hands while animals or people lived in deplorable conditions.
Carolyn especially loved her sunset rides as the weather grew warmer. As she put it, “Sitting high on Chase, feeling his familiar, supportive form beneath me and galloping through that gorgeous property with the wind blowing in my face and the sun setting, I forgot that I was dying.”
Carolyn journeyed the hard times and grew tender, not tough.
Soon after Carolyn was diagnosed, Lauren told Carolyn something that warmed her heart and lifted her spirits. She told Carolyn, “Mom, I feel like you haven’t yet begun to gallop … that because you are rejecting debilitating treatments, you’ll remain strong and eager enough to enjoy every fresh day, and then, you will gallop to heaven.” Lauren’s words wound up prophetic. Carolyn lived more life in a day while dying than many of us live in our primes, and then, fully accepting, with eternal hope, she galloped Home.
