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About Carol R. Laino
Carol Ruth Laino came into this world as Carol Ruth Frank on December
22, 1935, in Bay Shore, New York, the youngest of four girls and the fifth
child of six surviving siblings. Her home was destroyed by the infamous
hurricane that battered Bay Shore and the surrounding Long Island communities
in 1938.
Shortly thereafter, her family moved to Queens, New York. Carol graduated
from PS 136 and Andrew Jackson High School. In the 1960's she met a young
man, still in the U.S. Army and they had their first date on the day after
Christmas, almost 5 months to the date that they first met in the kitchen
of a mutual friend. They married 16 months later and raised two children.
Their life together was truly a love story.
More importantly, this section is to introduce the reader to a woman
who was a friend, wife, lover, mother, mother-in-law, grandmother, poet,
musician, teacher, athlete and she did all these things her way. She
was
a beautiful woman, fiercely independent and she usually got her way.
To those to whom she offered her friendship they were rewarded just
being
in her presence. Her warm, caring mannerisms were truly a wonderment
and when she smiled she lit up a room and when she laughed the world
laughed
with her. She reserved her best laughs when she could laugh at her self.
The writer, lovingly referred to her as "his own Scarlet O'Hara", you
know, "I'll worry about it tomorrow at Tara." She could be both a dreamer
and a pragmatist at the same time. She was an optimist married to a guy
who was always fighting windmills; Annie married to Don Quixote. She also
was as Winston Churchill once said "an enigma wrapped in a mystery" and
she made no excuses for what she was. Although, she often thought of herself
as relying heavily upon her husband and children, truth be known it was
the other way around.
Her courage through her almost 3 year fight with cancer was unbelievable.
On Thursday, May 6, 2004 when she was placed in the hospital bed in their
living room she told her husband that as soon as she got better, they
were going to Atlantic City. She was trying to cheer him up, one day after
she had been told that there was no hope left! She left this world 8 days
later on May 14, 2004. Those of us, who knew and loved her, miss her greatly
and we believe that the world is a little bit brighter because God added
a new star to His Heaven.
Joseph M. Laino
July 14, 2004
The two-month anniversary of her passing.
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