Remembering Carla Bagley
It pains me most of all that Carla Bagley died alone.
She was so open and giving. Being around other people seemed to bring her joy and give her energy.
She was one of two assistant features editors back in the days when I was features editor at the News & Record.
Lynn Burnette was the other.
We worked together for nearly five years in the days when they called the features pages Life & Leisure.
The feature writers used to rib us when Carla, Lynn and I would disappear into a conference room for weekly planning meetings.
"There they go," they'd say, "Darryl, his brother Darryl and his other brother Darryl."
I wasn't personally close to Carla but I enjoyed working with her and admired her manner with reporters. She was stern but encouraging ... a coach and a cheerleader.
She sat at a desk right outside my office door and often would scoot back into the opening of my doorway on the wheels of her chair and rear back her head. "Hey," she'd say, "how about we do so and so for such and such?"
The ideas came fast and furiously and the joy was evident in how Carla approached her work.
I remember the devilish smile on Carla's face when the features reporters discovered I'd sneaked off and gotten married without telling anybody.
Boy did they show me. When I returned, hiring a belly dancer to ambush me in the middle of the features department. Then-Managing Editor Ned Cline had been in on it all.
(Turns out the memory outlasted the marriage.)
Carla was a passionate Tar Heel fan and a loving mother.
Carla had a funny, giggly laugh.
Carla was unfailingly a team player and a friend and a special colleague.
I regret having lost contact with her after she left the News & Record.
I would have written these words a week ago, but for some reason I could not.
I'll never regret having known her and worked with her. If anyone took joy in living it was her.
That's why it's so hard to understand why she's gone.
Comments (7)
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My condolences to you and the News and Record staff.
Posted on September 24, 2008 10:40 AM
Thanks. Carla was an excellent co-worker and a an excellent person.
Posted on September 24, 2008 10:43 AM
Hi, Allen,
I, too, hate that I lost track of Carla. We spent many evenings working in the L&L department when others were at or on their way home. She was such a smart, easy-going person. She cared so much about her work and her family and friends. I hope that her children will know what a wonderful mom they had. And I'm sorry that the story of the belly dancer outlasted the marriage. Take care.
Posted on September 24, 2008 2:58 PM
Thanks, Lynn.
Those were the days, huh?
Hope you and yours are doing well.
Posted on September 24, 2008 3:00 PM
you all do not know me but i knew carla for only a short time. She was at the Durham Rescue mission. What was this college educated, socialite, of Greensboro doing here? Where was all of her friends when she lost her job and her will to live, because she was affraid that she would no longer be the "bell of the ball". My heart breaks at the thought of the hell this woman must have lived in when her world fell apart, and all her"friends" conviently forgot about her.
Posted on October 8, 2008 6:35 PM
I grew up with Carla. We were the same age and went through 12 years of public school together as well as being members of the same church in Dunn, NC.
When I learned of Carla's death and found out the details of her experience at the N&R I was saddened but not shocked. Carla was always an over-achiever and it's easy for me to picture her going to a desperate extreme in order to meet a deadline. Carla had a "perfect attendance record" throughout her school years and I remember her being in class with the flu rather than being absent. I only mention that to illustrate her resolve to be successful. She was a "straight-A" student.
My sister was a teacher at our high school, being 11 years older than Carla and I, and Carla kept in touch with her over the years, particularly in regard to her love for her children. My sister said she feared something was amiss when, for the first time in years, she didn't receive a Christmas card photo of Carla's kids.
I think the lesson we can all learn from Carla's story is that the pressures of day-to-day life and feelings of failure we experience when somehow we don't meet life's requirements can have unspeakable impact and consequences.
Carla was a good person and we shouldn't forget her or what we can learn from her tragic state of desperation.
Posted on February 20, 2009 8:32 AM
My prayer for Ms. Carla is that now she has found peace. I can only imagine how desperate one must be to end their life so tragically. I only knew her a short time but in that time i tried to extend my love and encouragement to her. where ever i go in life i never want my life to be defined by things, people or position, because when all those things are gone i still want to be happy with "me".
Posted on March 20, 2009 3:34 PM