This is how I heard the news that my dear friend Kathy is dying, and dying soon. She's dealing with it in typical Kathy fashion - with full disclosure and transparency, and a heaping helping of her signature sharp wit. Amazingly, she finds it all just a little ridiculous that we are sad she'll be leaving us soon. In a message last night, she wrote, Don't you wish you knew your expiration date? No. In fact, I don't. I'm too busy living to think about that.
Kathy beat cancer three times and she says for the past ten years she's been living on borrowed time. Those years have seen trips to Europe, performances with her idols, Mannheim Steamroller, huge successes with her publications and finally retirement from a teaching post where sadly she was under appreciated and frankly, often mistreated.
Kathy was one of only a handful of bright spots in a three year stint I did teaching at a university in Colorado, where on a good day it was a dysfunctional school run by an arrogant, ignorant and incompetent dean. I knew I was in trouble the first week when I was advised by a "colleague" that in order to get "anywhere" I'd need to start hanging around the "right people". Oh yeah, and while I was at it I would need to rethink my wardrobe and start wearing makeup too.
It was some of the most difficult years of my life and I couldn't get out of there fast enough. Thankfully, Kathy kept me sane, kept me laughing and some how helped me keep it all in perspective. Even after the dean and some old fart colleague of hers tried to get her demoted for not using "the right" handouts in her theory classes, she held her head high, kept on laughing, ignored them and just simply kept going.
Kathy is one of the most brilliant minds I've ever known. She has an ear so keen, I swear she hears the grass grow. She is so full of joy and love that it bubbles out of every inch of her and I cannot imagine the world without her in it.
May your journey be a peaceful one, dear Kathy. I am better person for knowing you.
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