Jeanne Marie

Jeanne Marie



Jeanne Marie Carey my sweet childhood friend recently left her earthly body after a long painful illness. She was a couragous soldier fighting the disease that ravaged her body and finally took her vision after many years. She never lost her compassion for others, her concern for her parents or her desire to shield others from her pain. Soliders in battle receive badges for the courageous acts they displays and in my mind Jeanne Marie deserved a badge of courage. She received that when she was met by her Savior at the gates of heaven on September 4th.



She was my comrade in arms growing up, we shared secrets to precious to even tell today. We laughed, we cried, we held each other. We learned how to just be with one another. We grew up together in the quietness of the night to the rush of the day, we watched one another go from silly little girls with unruly older siblings to becoming the "big" sister with responsiblity for the younger ones. We lived around the corner from one another and spent countless hours in each others homes, backyards, at sleepovers and skipping in mudpuddles.



Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, banana boats, cherry kool-aid, fizzies and campfire stew were our normal diets. We terrorized the neighborhood running back and forth between the two homes around the corner in and out the doors, constantly wearing our parents out as they decided who's house we would be sleeping at. It never mattered we just wanted to be together.



Times change, people change, life changes things, one thing remainded constant, Jeanne Marie's family to this day have always lived in the same home. They are as constant as the stars in the sky, that's the way it is suppose to be, parents stay in the same house, the kids move out and come back to visit and that is what Jeanne's parent did.



Jeanne and I stayed friends thru out our lives, never as close as we were during our innocent years, but never losing that bond of friendship we had. I visited with Jeanne's Mom and Dad yesterday and it was wonderful, we didn't focus on her death, we talked, laughed and shared many of the wonderful memories of the past. The journey was long, not long enough, but beautiful. Her Mom said Jeanne always told her "I'll be alright" and she truly is now, she is safe in the arms of her Savior.



Home safe no more pain, just skipping in mud puddles, eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and drinking cherry kool-aid.