My last exchange with Sharon Moon was classic Sharon: A little bit a wicked humor, and a little bit of kindness.
Responding to a Facebook post about the original version of the movie “It” and how the collection of clown figurines she kept in her home scared the hell out of me as a 13-year-old, Sharon jokingly questioned my toughness, then apologized for the display strategically positioned where friends of her son Steve crashed during a sleep-over.
I had no idea that was going to be the last time I interacted with the mother of my best friend. Though I knew she had stage four lung cancer, we all thought she would live several more months. Sadly, she passed about a week after that exchange at age 61.
Sharon was like a second mother from the eighth grade on. Steve and I connected almost immediately after my family moved from Lebanon, Missouri, to Burlingame in 1989, and we essentially have been brothers for nearly 30 years now.
As we were growing up, people often called us by each other’s names. Many of our friends in high school referred to our daily comedy routine as the “Steve and Ernie Show.” We found after years of friendship that our lives often mirrored one another (they still do in many ways).
As seniors in high school, we both had car accidents after falling asleep at the wheel. Several years later, we met our first wives in the same month. A few years later, we got married a month apart.
Sharon, of course, was there for all of that. I remember that I never went to her for advice … but she always offered it. Typically, it was in the form of, “Why don’t you think about what you’re doing before you jump into something and you don’t know what the hell you’re doing?”
I’m always going to remember that emphasized hell in her deep Texas twang. It always came with a distinguished cackle. Sharon had a great laugh.
I didn’t know much about Sharon beyond the Mom. She was born in Fort Worth in 1955, married Jimmy Peterson (the father of children Steve, Stephanie and Stacie) and divorced in the early 1980s.
Sharon went to Odessa Permian, which always fascinated me because I’d read “Friday Night Lights” several times. She married Thomas Moon in 1984, and the family moved to Burlingame a few years later.
As fortune would have it, the Webb family moved in 1989 to Burlingame. At the time, that was a miserable experience for a 13-year-old who was comfortable in southwest Missouri. Today, I thank God for that move largely because I ended up meeting Sharon’s son.
Most folks didn’t know a lot about Sharon. Like most, she worked, came home and took care of her family. Before long, that family included me. I probably spent more time at her home than mine. Partly because they had air conditioning, partly because Steve and I were inseparable and partly because Sharon and Jimmy almost always made sure their son had the latest in video games.
About a year after my family moved from the back roads into town, Steve and his family moved literally across the street. Like I said, our lives often mirror one another.
One of my lasting memories of Sharon came in 1990 when I made the mistake of ridiculing her son over a baby photo that hung on the wall. Sharon, who barely topped 5-foot, strolled up to me with a menacing smile and telling laugh: “Ernie, that’s my son.”
Needless to say, I never made fun of that photo again.
Into our mid-20s, Steve and I hung out often. Even when I worked in Independence, Kansas, at my first job in newspapers, I drove up every other weekend. Steve and I would meet at the duplex he shared with his mother and drive to Aldersgate, where his mom worked as a medication aide. I insisted on stopping by to see her because she always made me laugh.
Once we were done visiting, Steve and I hit the town for a night of drinking at Bullfrogs, returned home mostly drunk and woke up around noon. Before I left for home, of course, I’d chat with Sharon for a while.
There are plenty of ways to measure a person’s life, but none more telling than somebody’s children. Steve, as he always has been, is one of the finest people I’ve ever met. Her daughters have done quite well and have a combined eight kids. All told, Sharon had 11 grandchildren. She also is survived by her husband Thomas.
Sharon lived a life that most people didn’t know much about. If they knew about the children she raised, though, they’d envy it.
Note: A funeral service is scheduled for 11 a.m. Friday at the Burlingame Federate Church. Visitation is from 4 to 8 p.m. Thursday at Carey Funeral Home, where the family will greet friends and relatives from 6 to 8 p.m.