Month: June 2020

So many memories of Kay:  World Bank activism,  visits with community leaders fighting bad projects, assorted shenanigans aimed at helping foundations make better choices.  She made it all so much more…fun. (Also, way more effective, but for some reason, the fun is what I remember most vividly).  This picture comes from a too-brief, but deeply appreciated gift of a weekend with Kay in December 2018.  Having assessed that 99% of the ornaments had eco-themes, we decided to decorate the tree according to biological taxonomy.  Vigorous debate ensued about the location of birds vs. mammals and reptiles.  Allowances were made for food chains and predations.  We laughed–a lot.  Now I can’t decorate a tree any other way. 

There was no better colleague than Kay.  Her get-it-done, no-time-to-waste and strategic sensibility inspired us all. She had fire in her belly for a better world, which I wish more of us did!  Here she is a year ago, with me, Keiki Kehoe, and Amy Solomon.  Bruce, one devoted husband, took the shot.

Love out to you, Kay.  You live in our hearts.

Kay is a big Monty Python fan.  (I am not.). On one of her jaunts to NYC where we would always go to the theater, I got tickets to the opening of Spamalot, the musical based on MP and the Holy Grail.  She was all excited – which delighted me – and I kept my skepticism to myself.

First, we sat directly behind Burt Reynolds – so we started off giddy.  The best part of the evening (the show was fantastic), was that Ms. Kay Treakle laughed the longest, loudest, heartiest of anyone in the entire theater.  Which got our whole section, already hysterical from a truly funny show, off the charts with laughing.  Painful, thrilling, gut-busting laughter.  Kay led a communion of grateful theater-goers in letting it rip.

To the end of her life fifteen years later, all I had to do was mention one of the songs in the show, and Kay would start laughing.  Me too.

After Kay died, in the middle of the surreal world, some big work deadlines, and a house move, I did my best to defer feeling my deepest sorrow until after the house move, cuz puddles of tears and grief don’t go well with packing and organizing.  But on the radio (Broadway station) came a song from Spamalot.  That was that.  The dam burst.  As I was sobbing, I heard Kay laughing.  So she’s still lifting my spirits.