Antoinette Handley

Carol Handley

Carol Mary Handley was born on 19th May 1967, as the third child to Jane and Neville Handley – but their first daughter,  and this was important. Perhaps because she was born into a family of boys and grew up with her two brothers on the farm till  her younger sister Antoinette came along a couple of years later, she was famously a tom boy. She loved nothing better than to hang out with her brothers, Mark and James,  and to get up to all the mischief that they did – and oftentimes worse, because, being younger than them, she didn’t seem to understand the risk of what they might be doing. She was a daredevil and a bit of a thrill-seeker and would remain so for all of her life.

There was the time as a very little girl that she flew off the back of a moving pick-up truck because she wanted to best her brothers: they were making crowing noises and pretending to be cockerels so she climbed on the side of the truck to show off, only to fly off  onto the dirt road as Dad rounded a corner, unaware that his precious baby girl was not safely stowed in the back. Or there was the time when the three of them were letting themselves “run” down a very steep hill behind the dam; the boys were more cautious, letting the steepness of the slope carry them along just until they could stop themselves at the next set of trees, so that they could grab onto something and slow themselves down – not Carol who threw herself headlong down the hill at full tilt, and came to a predicably sticky end at the bottom…. That was a little how she lived her life.

As a toddler, whenever anything good happened to her, she insisted that she was a “lucky boy” despite my mother’s insistently trying to correct her that no, she was a lucky girl – but Carol insisted because a lucky boy was what each of her beloved brothers were, and so of course that was what she was too.

Despite her tomboy ways though, she was all-girl and, famously, a fight broke out on her first day of school among the boys for who got to hold her hand as they lined up for class. She was lovely of course, but it was also her personality – her warmth and sense of fun - that drew so many to her.

Anyone who knew her will tell you that Carol had a wicked sense of humour. She loved a good joke and could give as well as she got when it came to good-natured teasing. We will all fondly remember her distinctive cackle or howl of laughter when she was amused, which could somehow break out above any noise or hubbub.

Carol inherited from her parents a love for speed and fast cars and, once she acquired her own driver’s licence, was a bit of a terror behind the wheel. On a junior nurse’s salary she couldn’t afford much by way of her own wheels but she bought an old skedonk (an ancient Opel of some kind) that was the dullest shade of grey that you can imagine – not her style at all. But she loved it nonetheless and named the car Zoot. Her plan was to paint the car pink with white kitty cat pawprints running from one corner of the car across the hood and roof to the back corner, which would have been perfect for her.  Unfortunately, she never got to do that.

But she did get to be a nurse, something that she knew she wanted to be for as long as any of us could remember.  Carol loved being a nurse and was outstanding at nursing and caring for others.  One of the greatest sorrows for her, alongside the terrible realization post-accident that she would probably never marry and have a family of her own, was that she would not be able to return to nursing –  it was her true vocation in every sense of that word. Even as a little girl, she would tend to the injuries  and ailments of the farm workers who would sometimes turn up at the kitchen door; she was somehow calm and competent and gentle all at once, a very reassuring response for those who were in pain.

Indeed, both professionally and in her personal relationships, Carol had a gift for creating a safe and accepting space for people, especially those who were wounded in some way.  She also seemed to really thrive on the skills and knowledge that she gained in nursing school and as a practicing nurse – that training and experience gave her an authority that might have been amusing in someone so physically small, except that she pulled it off, and was both loved and respected by her patients and by her fellow nurses.

In November 1989, she and her fiancée Aubrey travelled home to Greytown to celebrate her dad’s birthday and to announce their engagement. However, on their way home to Pietermaritzburg she suffered a devastating brain injury in a motorcycle accident that changed her life in an instant. It was clear that her injuries, while invisible to the naked eye, were very severe and she was rushed to Greys Hospital in Pietermaritzburg. Nobody expected her to survive those first few days in the hospital – but she did. And she rallied too some time later when they had to take her off the machine that had been breathing for her; the outcome was far from certain but Carol’s fierce will and desire to live obviously kicked in and she began to breathe on her own. After agonizing months she was released from hospital and would live at home in Greytown with  her mum and dad for some years until the strain of the physio and other therapies she required became just too much for them to handle on their own.

In the mid 1990s, she settled into Cheshire  Homes in Queensburgh, which became her new home and her family for almost three decades. It is amazing to recall now that Carol lived longer / had more years post-accident than the years she had before the accident.  As her biological family, we extend a very special and sincere thank you to all the staff and residents at Cheshire for the way in which, over the years, you loved and cared for our beloved Carol, how you became part of a new and extended family for her and helped her build a new home.

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