Thelma and Louise

We made a trip up to Chesterfield, SC today to see Donna’s cousin and her husband. We were supposed to go up on Friday, but fate put a big dent in those plans for us Thursday evening.

Donna’s Aunt Mary was staying there in Chesterfield, probably for the rest of the winter. She had come down after Thanksgiving and had to be hospitalized because she was getting dizzy. After a couple of days in the hospital the doctors turned her loose, unsure what was wrong, but blaming it on her worsening emphysema. They put her on oxygen and told her it might be best if she didn’t return to NJ until the weather warmed up. When we last visited in early December she didn’t look like the same person that we had seen last July. She had lost weight and was having trouble walking because of the breathing issues.

Thursday when Laurie and her husband Ted returned from his dialysis they found her on the kitchen floor. She had fallen a couple hours earlier and she couldn’t get up because her hip was broken. She was rushed to a hospital in Rockingham, NC where she passed away a couple hours later from respiratory failure.

Mary and Donna’s mother were not only sister-in-laws, but they were best friends, having met in college long before they met the brothers they would end up marrying. Barbara was short and stocky and Mary was tall and thin. They were perfect travel companions because Barbara drove, but had no sense of direction while Mary was afraid to drive (living in Jersey like she did, who could blame her) but was a born navigator. The two of them visited each other a couple times a year and there was always a trip together in there somewhere. They earned the nicknames Thelma and Louise when they drove from Seattle to Aiken when Donna’s mom moved in with us. They even started signing their Christmas cards to each other that way.

So long Mary, we’ll miss you here on earth, but we know you are happy to be reunited with your traveling partner again.