SAD END TO A NICE TRIP

We have been away, in Maryland, and I have been too busy/exhausted to write. More about that next week.
On Tuesday afternoon, our last day with Keri and her family, we received a phone call from a good friend of Ger's telling us that his wife had just passed away. We made some quick travel changes and drove to NC on Wednesday to be there for Nancy's wake and funeral on Friday.
I have known Nancy for about 45 years but we only became real friends about 3 years ago. Nancy was one of those "BROOKLYN GIRLS" that Husband always hung out with. The story goes that Nancy and her husband Jerry met while in Catholic grade school. From the first time her Jerry saw Nancy he declared that he was going to marry her someday. To which Nancy ALWAYS responded "NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN" or "IN YOUR DREAMS" and later on when they were older, "LEAVE ME ALONE!". But Jerry persisted and even though they went to separate High Schools and Jerry left for a time in the Army they would occasionally meet and Jerry would once more make Nancy crazy with his declarations of love.
Nancy graduated and started working and hanging out with a group of Brooklyn girls who frequented a few of the bars in the neighborhood. (Drinking age was 18 at that time but these girls were still only 17 so there are a lot of good stories.) This is all in spite of the "good Catholic girl" image that the girls projected. Seems that the girls ALWAYS wore trench coats where ever they went. Whether it was the beach in the summer or church in the winter they always had on their trench coats. (We have laughed over that many many times and even Nancy couldn't remember WHY this was their "uniform" but it was what they all wore.) One of the popular bars that every one met at was DeLeo's. And it was at this particular bar that Husband met Jerry Kenny and Nancy and "The Girls". I hear tell that Husband dated several of the Brooklyn girls but those stories shall remain untold. My Gerry and Jerry Kenny became very good friends, partly because they were both going to be NYC cops. My Gerry never made it due to health issues but Jerry Kenny went on to be a motor cycle cop in NY. Jerry is a terrifically funny guy and it was always hard to picture him as a cop "fighting crime". The 2 Gerry's became such good friends that when Nancy finally gave in and agreed to marry her Jerry my Gerry was the best man. This was around the time that I just started dating H and the Kenny wedding was one of our first dates. The fact that H would be in the wedding party and sitting with them, thus leaving me ALONE with total strangers in a strange land (I was from Queens, Brooklyn is very strange to me) never occurred to me. I survived the day and Jerry and Nancy's marriage survived for 44 years.
Over those years we would get together with them occasionally but our children were different ages and we really didn't have much in common, even though we both were living on Long Island only about a half hour away from each other. The two husbands would talk once in a while and would ask how each of the wives were doing but that would be that. Then we all retired. Nancy and Jerry moved to Wilmington, NC and we moved to Florida. About 6 years ago we got a call saying that the Kenny's were going on a cruise from Florida and would like to stop and see us on their way home. They spent a day with us and it was the beginning of a friendship for Nancy and I. Every year we would stop in Wilmington on our way from a road trip to Maryland or they would stop to see us coming or going from a cruise from Florida. All this time Nancy was battling with Emphysema. IT WAS BAD! These last 2 years Nancy was on oxygen 24/7. She traveled with portable tanks of oxygen and had a large oxygen tank at home with a long hose so she could stay hooked to the oxygen but travel all over their house. It is a lousy disease and it was wearing her down bit by bit. The doctors wanted to do a procedure on her to help her breathing but she fought that for 2 years. It was something that would improve her quality of breathing but restrict her in so many ways that she would be a prisoner in her home.

This past spring Nancy and Jerry took one last trip to Florida where, due to a faulty oxygen tank, Nancy became very ill. They drove back to NC and made an appointment with Nancy's doctors at Duke University. One look at Nancy and they put her into the hospital and went ahead with the procedure that she had been fighting. That was the beginning of the end. And so on Monday night Nancy gave up the fight and passed away leaving her husband, 2 sons and one grandson. And a lot of fond memories for me of these past several years that our friendship blossomed. We laughed a lot when we were together and we found a lot of common ground to share. It wasn't a long friendship but it was a very special one and I will miss her very much.