Carol Burnett - Carrie and Me: A Mother-Daughter Love Story

CONTENTS

For Jody and Erin

PREFACE

In late 2000, my daughter Carrie Hamilton was working on a story, Sunrise in Memphis, writing in her small Colorado cabin. The story was about a bohemian girls strange road trip to Elviss Graceland with a mysterious cowboy. Carrie planned to turn it into a screenplay eventually. Because she felt a kinship with Kate, her main character, Carrie (being a free spirit and somewhat bohemian herself) decided to hit the road and take the same trip for research purposes.

So she got out her maps, filled the gas tank in her Jeep, and headed south toward Memphis. She e-mailed me fresh pages of the story almost daily, along with tales of her own adventures on her journey to Graceland. As a side trip, Carrie visited our familys old stomping grounds in San Antonio, Texas, and Belleville, Arkansas, since the two of us were writing a play together based on my family, who came from those parts of the country.

Carrie didnt live to finish either project. She died of cancer a little over a year later at the age of thirty-eight.

This book has taken me on a bittersweet journey. When she was in the hospital for the last time, Carrie asked me to finish Sunrise in Memphis for her, which I havent been able to do. Try as I might, the characters in the story were hers to write, not mine. Carries request had been living with me for over ten years when I finally figured out what I could do.

Fortunately, I had saved all of the letters and e-mails we wrote to each other during her road trip to Memphis. In Part One of this book Ive combined that correspondence with my own memories. These include a few episodes Ive written about before, but I feel they bear repeating to round out the order of events. Ive also written here about Carries brave fight against her illness. Part Two is Carries story Sunrise in Memphis, which is fun to read in its own right, but also eerily echoes Carries journey.

This book is my way of honoring her last request, bringing to the page many of Carries thoughts and feelings and also my own journey with her, including all the ups and downs in the early years (which got pretty bumpy when Carrie became a teenager).

Carrie was widely known as a magnetic young woman with a stunning smile, an infectious laugh, a throaty voice, and the soul of a poet. She was someone who cared deeply for others, particularly for those less fortunate. Whenever a homeless person approached her, she would offer them a deal: five dollars if they told her their story. As youll see, Carrie used those stories, and the personal narratives shared with her by everyone she met, as inspiration for her prose, her poetry, her music, her lyrics, and her acting. Carrie piled so much into her young life that one can only imagine what she would have tackled and accomplished in the second half.

For myself, I hope you will get to know the daughter I loved and cherished. I can honestly say that just about everyone who knew Carrie loved her. Maybe thats because she loved them right back.

I also hope Ive succeeded in bringing Carries essence to these pages. I treasure her words, and even after reading them again and again, each time I am grateful for the reminder that she has never left me.

PART ONE

Some Very Early Memories

December 1963

New York City

In spite of the cold, snowy weather, I was very hot all the time because I was very pregnant. One night I was burning up, but didnt dare open the window in our apartment bedroom for fear that my husband, Joe Hamilton, sleeping next to me, might wind up freezing to death. So I went into the second bedroom, opened the window to let the cold night air blow in, and plopped myself down on top of the covers. At last I was finally comfortable. The next morning I woke up refreshed after a good nights sleep and found myself covered in a lovely white blanket of snow, which had blown in sideways through the open window during the night! Heaven.

I went into labor the evening of December 4. Small pains at first, but we knew this was it. Joe and I checked into the hospital around eight oclock, and I was assigned to a labor room. The night nurse, Louise (I remember her name because it was my mothers name), helped me get undressed and issued me the regular hospital uniforma singularly unattractive, knee-length gown, opening in the back. She hung up my dress and coat in the closet, put my boots on the shelf, and led me to a rather lumpy bed. I obediently got in and she hoisted up some metal bars on both sides. I figured she must be worried that I might roll off onto the floor and bounce down the hall.

A doctor on duty came in to examine me, and my water broke immediately.

A short while later, Joe was ushered in and was advised by Louise that he might as well go home because it looked like it would be a long night. I secretly wished he would stay with me, but in those days the father wasnt necessarily a welcome figure in the labor room. Louise promised Joe shed call him when the time drew near. They left, and I was alone in the dark. The nurse had given me a shot and I dozed off, thinking this labor thing wasnt nearly as difficult as they say....

The next thing I remember is waking to the sound of some woman from the cell next to mine screaming, Omigod! Omigod! Get this out of me NOW!!! I dozed off again, still confident that my labor was going to be a snap.

Wrong. I was awakened by pains coming fast and hard. I called out for Louise. She came in, gave me a few ice chips to chew on, assured me that all was well, and left me once again. All was well, my foot! I thought the shot they had given me earlier was going to make this whole business easier. It only made me drunk. So drunk that I sat up, pushed the bed bars down, got up, waddled over to the closet, and proceeded to get dressed. I had put on my dress and coat, and was trying to squeeze into my boots when Louise came back in.

Mrs. Hamilton! What are you doing?

Leaving.

But you cant!

Look, I reasoned, I didnt feel like this when I came in, so I wont feel like this when I get out of here!

She got me back into that god-awful gown and into that god-awful bed, and the whole thing started back up with a vengeance. Before long I found myself sounding just like my next-door neighbor.

Carrie Louise Hamilton, my firstborn child, arrived the morning of December 5 at 11:20 a.m. They placed her in my arms and when I looked at my little miracle, all that pain quickly became a dim memory.

Holding my new baby daughter, Carrie Louise, 1963

I remember wanting Carrie to walk by her first birthday. She had already taken the first few baby steps by the time she was eleven months old, but only when we walked together, so she could hold on to my little finger. I came up with a brilliant idea. I would hold on to one end of a large handkerchief and give Carrie the other end (which substituted for my little finger). It worked. Together we walked up and down the hall of our apartment several times a day for about a week, and she never fell down. Then came the day when I quietly dropped my end of the handkerchief, but continued to walk beside her. Not noticing, she walked without my help to the end of the hall. I was so excited I exclaimed, Good girl!!! See? You did it all by yourself! She looked at the handkerchief, and seeing that I wasnt holding the other end, immediately plopped down on the floor and started to cry. After that I let her learn to walk at her own pace, having come to the realization that there are some things a parent shouldnt try to force.