Sunday, November 5, 2023
Farewell, Dear Nancy!
11/5/23
Hello, Everybody!
She was well attended by family & local hospice assistants, but Dear Nancy passed away in our home last Wednesday – November 1st, 2023. I will provide below the obituary we compiled for her that was featured yesterday in our local Laramie Boomerang. She passed from chronic heart failure. She died in peace, just 3 weeks from what would have been her 91st birthday.
I wasn’t there at the moment of her passing, but I was there within 10 minutes after she had gone. As it happened, I was resting in a recliner in our living room, with a near 102 temp I was experiencing recovering from a Covid booster vaccination I took the day before. Either Debbie, Nancy’s daughter, or Dottie, Nancy’s younger sister came to me and told me “Nancy’s Gone!” Immediately, I went in to check on Nancy and found her that way – Gone!
I had slept in another recliner next to Nancy the night before in our tv room. Nancy was in a hospital bed provided by Laramie Hospice. So I could not sleep with her as normal. I had not slept that night hardly at all due to sounds of groaning coming from Nancy, but around 7, I found Nancy semi-conscious as I reached over to kiss her on her lips. She said very meekly – I love kisses, I love kisses, I love kisses! Debbie, Dottie, and a visiting Home Instead nurse were with her to change her. So I left her with them, but those are the last words Nancy said to me – I love kisses, I love kisses, I love kisses.
I have tears in my eyes as I write this now, but what a wonderful way to end our relationship – with kisses; but her peaceful ending confirmed in me my strong belief that death is nothing to fear – at least when it happens peacefully. What is there to fear? If you go in peace, there is absolutely no reason to believe that peace will end when you enter your afterlife, so to speak.
Personally, I do not know where Nancy went, but I am absolutely sure that wherever it was is wonderful simply because Nancy will take that wonderful with her just as I will do the same when I die. I am so glad I was near to Nancy when she did pass, though, because it’s good to know what I can expect when I go – if I go in peace.
Like Nancy’s obituary says, we are planning on two goodbye memorials for Nancy – one on her 91st birthday on November 22nd at our gravesite and one at Trinity Lutheran Church here in Laramie next June 22nd, 2024 so that family & friends can come from a distance.
I say “our” gravesite because I had already arranged for a grave with a tombstone with an inscription on it – which I will share below. All that was needed was to provide a death date for Nancy – and later for me; but I have known for awhile that Nancy would likely succumb due to her chronic heart – and I wanted to prepare a place for her at our Greenhill Cemetery. Nancy has been cremated – and I will be too. So not much space will be needed to file away our ashes.
I want to thank Nancy’s daughter, Debbie, who came from her home in Oregon to be with Nancy for her last 10 days as it turned out – and Dottie and her husband, Don, from Illinois, arrived shortly after Debbie and spent almost the same time with Nancy. Her son, Mark, who lives in New Jersey, came for a few days too. That was wonderful! So, Thanks, Mark! Thanks, Debbie ! And, Thanks, Dottie & Don!
Thanks, too, to our local hospice, Laramie Hospice (or Hospice of Laramie), and a nursing assistance agency called Home Instead, for being here for Nancy – and me – to help Nancy ease on out of her life on Earth and begin another life somewhere else – be it back here on Earth or elsewhere. Who knows how any of that will go? It’s good to know, though, that it will probably continue well if happened well before. That is my belief – as it was Nancy’s too.
That’s it for now! Of course I will struggle with Nancy gone – like anyone would – but I will try to keep in mind the inscriptions on our tombstone – which are below – and likely visit Nancy now and then at our gravesite and meditate about the wonder of life – both here and where Nancy has gone and where I will go sometime soon. After all, I will be 82 in December. I can’t last much longer. Can I?
I will end it with three things – one of my songs Nancy liked to hear me sing called ODE TO THE WIND, the inscriptions on our gravesite, and Nancy’s obituary. If you like my song, sing it out – with whatever tune you would like to provide; but my guess is your tune will likely be the same as mine because lyrics often lend to same tunes – if you know what I mean.
HAVE A WONDERFUL LIFE, Everyone!
Be in touch!
All Our Love,
Departed Angel, Nancy, and Still Here,
Francis William (Frank, Will) Bessler
Laramie, Wyoming
ODE TO THE WIND
By
Francis William Bessler
Laramie, Wyoming
5/9/2006
REFRAIN:
Clouds are in my eyes.
The wind is in my face.
The birds are flying high.
They seem so full of grace.
The wind is my friend.
It blows the clouds around.
I’m wondering as I stand -
where tomorrow I’ll be found.
Oh, what is the mystery of life?
Won’t you tell me what it is?
They tell me the secrets of the night
are found just blowing in the wind.
I’m wondering as I stand upon this hill
what are the secrets of my soul?
I think I’ll keep going on until
the wind tells me what I want to know.
Refrain.
As I stand here beneath the stars above,
my mind just keeps on asking why.
I know that the answers I can love
are found in the wind and the sky.
I’m hoping as the wind blows so free,
it will tell me what I want to know.
And I think that it’s telling me
my friend, just be grateful for the show.
Refrain.
I ask my friend, the wind, where is God;
and it tells me to look all around.
It tells me to look there because
there’s no place where God can’t be found.
Refrain (2).
Our Inscriptions at
our grave site at
Laramie Greenhill Cemetery.
That site is Row K, Lot 33, Space # 5.
The Key to Finding Peace
In this life or the next
Is to Know & Treat Life
Like it is a Gift –
For a Gift it is from
An All Present Infinite God.
Or such is OUR BELIEF!
Onwards!
Every place is Heaven
because God is everywhere.
What makes a place a Heaven
is the Divinity that is there.
So, it stands to reason, My Friend,
if all existence is of God,
all existence must be Heaven
and where I am I should applaud.
Nancy Hammond Shaw
11/22/1932 – 11/1/2023
Francis William Bessler
12/3/1941 –
Nancy Shaw’s Obituary
November 22, 1932 – November 1, 2023
Nancy Lee Shaw of Laramie , Wyoming passed away peacefully on November 1st at her home in Laramie where she had resided for 41 years. She was 90 years, 11 months old, passing from chronic heart failure just 3 weeks shy of her 91st birthday. She was assisted by wonderful family and home health services – Enhabit, Laramie Hospice, and Home Instead.
Nancy was born on November 22, 1932, to Frederick Leete Hammond and Kathryn Amelia Foster Hammond in Meadville, Pennsylvania. She grew up in Ohio on a dairy farm helping her family milking and caring for the cows and farm. She had bachelor’s in music from Oberlin and a master’s degree in music education from Oklahoma State University. She taught local children piano for years in Laramie. She spent many wonderful years in Wyoming enjoying the great outdoors. She loved hiking, skiing, walking her dogs, cooking, singing, and spending time with family.
After Nancy’s 2nd husband, Joce Shaw, passed at the age of 88 from Parkinson’s Disease in 2012, at Nancy’s request, a good friend of the family, Francis William Bessler, moved in with Nancy and Nancy and Francis (Will) Bessler were married on April 28th, 2018 at the Trinity Lutheran Church in Laramie. They very much enjoyed the following years.
Nancy is survived by her husband Francis Bessler, a daughter Deborah Sanchez, son Mark Schmalfeld and his spouse Leslie, grandchildren: Emma Schmalfeld, Luke Sanchez, Annmarie Sanchez, Robin Sanchez, greatgrandchildren: Lyric Sanchez and Astella Birdsong. She had one sister Dorothy Eileen Dexheimer, her husband Robert Donald Dexheimer III, and two nieces, Elizabeth Galliano and Kathryn Dexheimer. The nieces are each married and have four children between them.
A memorial service will be held at her gravesite in Greenhill Cemetery in Laramie at 11 A.M. on November 22nd, her 91st birthday. A second memorial service is being planned for a warmer date in 2024 at the Trinity Lutheran Church in Laramie, Wyoming. Details on the service will be posted in the Laramie Boomerang. All are welcome to attend both services. God has blessed us with Nancy’s presence and we would like to celebrate her life.