A "Peace" of Kate: "True Beauty" Written by Carianne Brogan

There are some individuals that can stop you in your tracks with their outer beauty and then there are others that can stop you in your tracks with their inner beauty…few can do both while making you feel like the beauty in the room. Kate had this talent.   I remember the first day of high school. I had my group of friends and wasn’t feeling intimidated by the idea of expanding the circle. But being a young girl, clearly you checked out your competition for the male species.

Then I saw Kate. She was stunning! She was tall and slender, had blue eyes that smiled at you with a piercing certainty, a killer smile, a perfect sun kissed tan and long flowing hair.

“UGH! How am I going to ever get a boyfriend if this is what the other girls look like in high school” was my only thought.

The qualities which struck me initially as a striking outer beauty slowly became a distant thought as I got to know Kate. That sounds like a strange thing to say… I should explain.

Once you met Kate, she instantly made you feel comfortable, whether it be from her warm smile or her quick wit. She had a confidence about her and a bit of a swagger (which I now attribute to an overall Shea trait) and a quick wit that could take you from tears of sorrow to tears of laughter in less than a minute. She always made you feel part of the crowd and never discriminated with whom she would share her love for life.   Kate and I were not best friends but there was never a moment when we were hanging out that she didn’t make you feel like she considered you as one of her closest friends. It’s a gift that few people posses to make others around them feel important. It was genuine. It was her soul seeing the best in others. You also appreciated that quality because if there was someone in the room that was putting anyone else down, Kate would be the one to call them out on it and make them look in the mirror before casting any other stones. She was a force of Nature not to be reckoned with. Her strength, her humor, her kindness and her candor all made her such an amazing friend that you saw her as a beautiful soul and forgot about the stunning girl that intimidated you at first glance.

It wasn’t until our college years, one summer, when I hadn’t seen Kate in a few months that I was once again struck by her outer beauty. We were all hanging out at another one of Dunph’s summer parties when Kate and Vincent arrived from someone’s wedding. After a great big Shea hug, I looked at her and just blurted out how gorgeous she looked. I actually had forgotten, since the first week of freshman year, how stunning she truly was on the outside because her inside shined its star on us for all those years.   A few minutes later…just like that, Kate worked her magic and within moments was throwing compliments all over the crowd, making us all laugh and just sharing her crazy energy with us, making me forget about her exterior and just seeing her as my dear friend Kate.

I can hear her now, busting my chops for sounding so sappy but smiling at the same time knowing exactly where my sentiment comes from.  

On any given day, I get a visit from Kate, not in an actual ghost form but just in sensing her presence. I can’t describe it specifically but there is no denying it. It can bring me to my knees in tears from missing her or make me burst into laughter remembering something she did. I feel honored to say she was my friend. I feel angry that Cancer took her too soon from us.   I feel blessed that the Bay Head 5k Memory Run has allowed us all to go through the grieving process together and come out of this better people…better people, I hope, that are a little more like Kate, when we aspire to do something for others.   

Miss you, girl. Much Love!

A "Peace" of Kate: "Forever Young" Written by Marybeth Wojcik Zwally

When Ed asked me to write a memory of Kate, many came to mind. Sometimes, to be honest, the memories hurt a bit….I miss my friend. Sometimes the memories make me laugh out loud. I think of the sleepovers, the long phone conversations, and the crazy notes we used to pass to each other in high school and smile.

But there is one memory in particular I will never forget. It is etched in my mind and it helped me get through the times that just seemed too tough.

In our junior year of high school, Kate and I were lucky enough to take a trip with a group of girls to Italy. We traveled to Rome, Florence and Venice and a few smaller towns in between. We traveled to all those places by bus which at times could be rough, but Kate and I “called the back” with the most seats and we spread out all our stuff. I had a walkman and a bunch of mixed tapes, and Kate and I would pass it back and forth, sometimes even trying to listen with those old style earphones at the same time. But then we got stuck listening to one song. Forever Young by Alphaville, and we listened to it over and over. Kate would listen to it and then pass it to me, and when it was over. I would just pass it back.

The song, in some weird way, summed everything up for us. Here we were, two close friends , listening to music,with our whole lives ahead of us, listening to music ,and just watching the beautiful Italian countryside passing us by.

“Forever Young, I want to be Forever Young, Do you really want to live forever, forever forever?”

I remember staring at her as she was curled up against the window, sun in her face, staring out at the amazing view. Knowing the haunting lyrics that she was listening to and thinking what a beautiful picture if only I had my camera. I realized how truly lucky we both were to be there, and if I could just bottle the moment.

‘Let us die young or let us live forever, we don’t have the power but we never say never.”
I would think of this moment when Kate would say she wanted to travel the world. I could understand why. She wanted to experience more of those moments.

I know Kate is in Heaven, and when I picture her, I don’t picture her puffy from the drugs, pale from the cancer and the pain, or bald from all the chemo that tried to save her. I picture her in Italy, the gorgeous girl, listening to her tunes, staring out, face lit from the sun.

 To me she will always be Forever Young.

A "Peace" of Kate: "Tricky Kate" Written by Ray Shea

I’ll never forget the night I was sitting at the kitchen table after dinner in Farmingdale. One of Kate’s cats, mostly black, walked past my chair and was just exiting into the dining room when a cat, mostly black, entered the kitchen by my chair. I jumped up and uttered “What the …!”  How could that cat have gone into the dining room, come out, run down the hallway and reentered the kitchen that quickly. It wasn’t possible…was it?  That’s when I learned for the first time that Kate and her mother had determined I wouldn’t know one cat from another if they were all basically the same color. So they regularly slipped in newly found cats of similar coloring and I blissfully assumed we just had an active cat that really got around.

You should have seen my face when I realized the truth. Remember Capt. Queeg played by Humphrey Bogart in Caine Mutiny? It was like the strawberries. I proved with” mathematical precision” that more than 5 cats inhabited my home!! To no avail of course, I kept grumbling but the cats kept coming.

 Epilogue—just last week Suzanne advised that she thought the house needed a cat!!

A "Peace" of Kate: "Animal Lover" Written by Erin Faber

Kate was an animal lover, a true animal rights advocate. Her passion was insatiable. she had a fierce determination to protect all animals as best she could. She amazed us all with her perseverance and dedication to the welfare of any and all animals. I can not tell you how many cats she brought home, but lets just say in the 25 Years Kate was alive, Monmouth and Ocean county had no stray cats to worry about, they were all at 5 West Main Street and Kate was their caretaker, much to the dismay of poppy Shea. He loved the 3 cats we already had, but Kate was relentless,"Dad, I found this kitten, abandoned, can we keep him? Please Dad? What could he possibly say, he always relented. This was her mission. She did one hell of a job. I want to share with you my absolute favorite animal story involving Kate. Cats were not her only mission... she was fiercly devoted, she was intense.

Kate and I went out to run some errands one day. I believe the mission was Joyce Leslie, a very low end clothing shop Kate believed existed solely for her. She despised doing laundry, so she shopped at Joyce Leslie, wore the outfit once, and then that outfit would never be seen again. It would remain on her bedroom floor and see it's demise. Anyway, back to the car ride. On the way home we were traveling down Belmar Boulevard in Wall twnsp. All of a sudden Kate slams her hand down on the horn, she holds it there for a good minute, she then precedes to take her other hand and whip it out the window flashing her middle finger. at who? I had no idea.  What the hell was going on? We then came upon a long line of trucks parked at the side of the road... HUNTERS!!!! She laid her hand down on that horn before any hunter was visible, she had obviously done this many times before . I howled uncontrollably. She made sure that any deer in earshot would run like hell, and truly hoped all the hunters were screaming obscenities at this crazy person whom repeated this same routine daily, until hunting season was over. Kate made a difference. She was a champion.

Rest in Peace Kate.

I love you. Erin