gone from our site...never from our hearts....peace LO

b

I was asked by Joyce to speak at Lo's service held in Gainesville Fl. I made some quick notes the day they told they that his time was short here with us. I never looked back at those notes until the day before the service July 26, 2008, and then I never used any of those notes when I got up to talk about what being a friend with Lo Carter was like from my vantage point. For those who weren't there are did not know Leonard C. "Lo" Carter, here just a few of my thoughts on my best friend.
....I can't believe I even saying this, but I have been friends with Lo for over 42 years! It just doesn't seem that long ago. I would like to start by saying to Leonard (son) and Ashley (daughter)that your tribute that the pastor just read was very, very nice and well stated!
But Ashely you made reference to your dad was the way he was "until the end", well I have to tell you this is not the end!
Your dad's kindness, repect for others and all of his other qualities he enstilled in you will come to you on a daily basis, and continue to gently remind you of all of these things that he taught you growing up.
I have to say that the best reason for me to be able to get up here and talk about Lo in this way today is something that I've heard Lo said to me the last week or so. It is not exactly his voice nessarily but it is the way he would speak and the way I hear it in my head. Lo would say... "It's okay Carey"
I would wake up at night and hear "It's okay Carey" even days before Lo passed away, I've heard it all though out today and each day since Joyce called me Wednesday morning to tell me about Lo's passing.

Lo was the most caring, and intelligent person I guess I have ever known. We met in 1965 during our first year at Lakeland high school. Shortly after school started I guess, Lo started working at Ray Zogorskis Gulf station on So. Fla. ave. and I started working at Publix meat department just down the road. Each day Lo would enlightend me all about "points, plugs and consensors", and the general maintance of the automobile that he had learned on his job, and I would tell Lo about cutting up chickens at Publix.
As time went on Lo went to work with his dad during the summer months working hard labor in the Carter Groves around Polk City. Lo would come home and tell me about hoeing and all of the chemical make up of the herbicides that he had used and how they worked. I would tell Lo a little more about cutting up chickens, and I guessed he found it interesting because he always seemed to listen to what I was saying.
Sometime during our high school we started playing guitars over at "Mother Ann's" home (Lo's stepmother) and we would play the same tune for about eight hours a day, I guess and I also think it was loud but we learned a lot spending that much time together everyday. Lo and I graduated in 1969 and Lo went off to college at UNC, and I went to work everyday at Publix along with the chickens.
We both settled into our careers, Lo as an enviornmental engineer and I went into management with Publix, We both married and started raising children, but our paths crossed once again around 1988 when Julie and I moved to Gainesville where Lo and Joyce had been living for quite a while. Lo and I started playing guitars again, starting with the same ole song, and even learned a few things new. Lo was a master at many things including playing his 1957 Strat, and Lo taught me more than I could ever retain about the stucture of music, and putting notes together, etc, etc.
I know it's going to be hard with Lo being gone, but Lo is where he needs to be now, and is in a most peaceful place. I would like to read a poem that was recently read at another friends funeral a short time ago.
The poem is entitled "All is Well" and I have added my own tag line of "It's okay Carey.

To be continued...........

continuation...........

ALL IS WELL
(It's okay Carey)

(Henry Scott Holland, St Paul's Cathedral, London)

Death is nothing at all

I have only slipped away into the next room

I am, I, and you are you

Whatever we were to each other

That we still are

Call me by my old familiar name

Speak to me in the easy way, which you have always used

Put no difference into your tone

Wear no forced air of sorrow

Laugh as we always laughed

At the little jokes we enjoyed together

Play, smile, think of me, pray for me

Let my name be ever the household word that is always was

Let it be spoken without effect

Without a trace of shadow on it

Life meant all that is ever meant

It is the same as it ever was

There is absolute unbroken continuity

Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight?

I am but waiting for you for an interval

Somewhere very near

Just around the corner.

that was beautiful carey... 100% right "its ok carey" ...peace,b