It’s been almost 2 years now since we lost my sister. In some ways it seems like a lifetime ago, in others it seems like yesterday. The crazy couple of years we’ve all spent during the pandemic is kind of a blur, so many things have changed, so many lives have changed, our social fabric has changed, and so many people have been lost. Families have been suspended from gatherings like this, and we’ve been delayed the chance to honor my amazing sister.
My 3 older sisters, Kandy, Karen and Kay, and I have always been close, thankfully, and I’m so fortunate to have grown up in this family. Learning how to treat people, how to respect women, how to be thoughtful and mindful of others, how to work hard, to love all, and to love the earth. Each of my sisters forged their own independent paths in life and successful careers, with long loving marriages to Mike, Philip and Bruce. And I’m just so lucky to have had them in my life, through good and bad, and now here to support each other as we’ve been processing losing one of us. It’s been hard, and we’re still grieving, but as Kay would expect, we’re living life, moving on, being thoughtful and doing meaningful things. And celebrating her with family and friends.
For Kay, her path took her away from home when I was in my teens, when she committed her life work to the Earth. HER Earth. She took ownership of it, and responsibility for it, and did something impactful with her life to try to preserve it. My parents were a little worried I think at first, her independence and “stubbornness” her “radicalness” concerned them, maybe confused them, but definitely worried them. Her first arrest for protesting and the media attention of the time, were both shocking, and exhilarating. I was like “woohoo!! That’s MY SISTER!! I didn’t really know at the time what the hell was going on, I just know that I thought she was cool. Mom was like “Oh what will the neighbors think”, and Dad was “Let her go, she’s doing what she wants, and she’s probably right!”. And so it began, her lifelong mission for the EARTH. We were always proud of her work, her accomplishments, her writing, her articles, her achievements, and always interested in where her trips took her. We miss her laugh, her dinners, her brilliance, her use in its many forms of the work fuck. Her smart, sharp sense of humor. Her instincts and insightfulness. The Earth has lost a fierce warrior, but we’ve lost a sister, a wife, a mom, a grandma, an aunt, and a friend.
We grew up in a small, 2 story, 3 bedroom house just a little over a mile from this very spot. We spent years in this park, riding our bikes down here, spending summer days at Owen Beach, having picnics, hiking, playing on the beach and cliffs, and beach combing. Kandy and Karen even worked here in the park in their teens. I still come here often, it’s a kind of sanctuary for me, and I think it was for Kay too, that’s why we’re here today. She loved this building and all of the gardens here at the Point.
In that small 3 bedroom house, Kay and I shared bunkbeds in the smallest of the 3 rooms. I don’t have much memory of that period because I was so young, but I do know Kay was not thrilled sharing a room with her little brother. So when Kandy moved out when I was about 6, Kay moved into the middle room with Karen, and I had the little room all to myself. While I’m certain Karen and Kay were already close sisters before then, it was likely the foundation for their incredible lifetime sisterhood bond. They were best friends. Dad called them Sam & George. Kay was Sam I think. They shared so much together, even through the years Kay lived away, they spoke all the time, and got together for memorable family vacations and hikes with the kids, Nate, Alie & Hanna. And later trips to Europe.
Karen was with her every step of the way through her illness and to the very end of her life. I know that was incredibly hard, and I know Kay was so grateful for having her there, Kandy and I were too.
Kandy and Kay were close too, speaking often when she was away, more so when she moved back home. They’d have lunch occasionally, and they loved going to Watson’s Nursery every spring to shop and explore. And Kandy and Kay were able to share some special walks around her yard, and quiet conversations in the garden toward the end.
Kay and I were close, but really didn’t talk much in the years she was away. We were both raising families, having careers, and time and life just got away from us. But I was SO happy when she moved back home, and we became really close then. She was there for me when I needed it most, in a tough patch in my life in 2007-08. Her and Bruce took me in and let me live with them for several months, while I was sorting some things out. Bruce was not so thrilled I know, but Kay never hesitated, and was right there for me for as long as and for whatever I needed. And while she was supportive of me, she was also brutally honest with me, blunt, and always straight with me with timely, smart, pragmatic, loving advice.
When I was in 6th grade, I ran for student body president against Doug Jackson. Kay was in high school at Stadium, and was a budding artist. Her art class at the time was drawing and painting Disney and Charlie Brown characters. I remember she made my campaign posters using Mickey Mouse, Charlie Brown and Snoopy in the themes, and I remember one of Charlie Brown’s voice bubbles as my slogan, saying “Don’t vote for a Mouse, vote for a Man, John Treakle for President”. Not sure who came up with that, but I lost that election. But I’ll tell you I had the coolest campaign posters in the history of Sherman Elementary School.
We had a lot of great summers at Offut Lake as kids, camping out, swimming, campfires, teenage hi-jinx and shenanigans with the Fidlers, the legend of the “Skinny Dip”. Great memories we’ve laughed often about over the years. Kay always enjoyed the Peterson Family reunions, and even though she was living in DC for all those years, she sometimes found her way back home for one of them. Sometimes a Thanksgiving or Christmas visit, sometimes passing through on her way to or from somewhere afar.
We always looked forward to hearing the latest from her world travels, or what she was working on currently, or where or who her current anger and outrage were being unleashed on. A lot of that was deep, and complicated, and beyond my scope of understanding sometimes, but always fascinating, and intriguing and interesting. I loved her passion and brilliance, fighting for what she believed in, and her willing engagement in the process of change.
One of Kay’s first jobs, was working for Barney Bagel & Suzie Cream Cheese on the first floor of the Old City Hall building, here in Tacoma. I remember hanging out one day with her there, and after work she took me up into clock tower, which you weren’t supposed to be able to have access to, but there was some sneaky secret way she found out about and we found our way up there. That was cool.
Her first car was a rusty, multi-colored, late 50’s Volvo. I remember she carried a gallon of water with her always, because it overheated regularly, jumper cables because she had a bad battery, and a tire pump, because she had a slow leak in one of her tires. When she was selling it, I recall Dad taking a call from somebody interested in it, and the guy asked what color it was, Dad said “What color is it? Well it depends on which side you’re standing on”. I think she sold it for $50, and bought the green Volkswagon Bug she moved to Seattle with.
She moved to Seattle when she was maybe 19 or 20, at first I think to work at the BB&SCC up there, but I think the early workings of Greenpeace were then forming. I remember staying with her one summer for a few days at her apartment on Queen Anne Hill. She went to work and left me in her apartment for the day, I was probably 14, and I recall riding her green Schwinn Varsity 10 speed bike down QA Hill to Seattle Center. I crashed and scuffed up the tape on her handle bars, and was so worried that she was going to be mad at me, but she brushed it off, said it was no big deal, and was more concerned about my scraped and bloodied knees and elbows, and she thought Mom would be mad at her because she let me get broken while I was in her care in the big city.
From Seattle Kay moved on, first to San Francisco, then Washington D.C. And so for the next few decades, she immersed herself in her passion and her work, and we watched from afar. Admiring her, being inspired by her, and always interested in her work. Mom and Dad finally came to understand what she was doing, and accepted her “adventurist spirit”, and were proud of what she was doing. And they were always glad when she came home for a visit.
In 2006 I think it was, the opportunity for her to come back home came through a job with the Harder Foundation as its Executive Director. A super great job for her, and we were so glad to have her and Bruce back.
She loved the job, and being home, and her and Bruce settled into life in Tacoma. She was able to focus her passion and efforts on preserving northwest waters, shorelines, fish runs, rivers, streams and forests, and so much more. Working with state and local governments, counties, municipalities, tribes, environmental organizations and others, with many of you, making a real impact in her own backyard. And at home she was also able to engage in one of her other passions, gardening, in HER own backyard. We all enjoyed the fruits of her efforts in so many backyard family gatherings over the past several years.
When Nate and Halie had little Colin, she was such a happy grandma, she was effusive in her praise for his latest tooth, or smile, or something funny he said or did. Then, she was robbed of all that. I’m fortunate to have 10 grandkids and one more on the way, and I know what a blessing it is to be a grandparent. Sadly, she was robbed of that.
I remember exactly where I was when I got the call from Kay, telling me of her diagnosis of liver cancer. She was very straight forward and pragmatic about it, as she was about everything, facing it straight on, and mad as hell. So she went off to fight like hell for the next 2 years. We had dinner often, before the pandemic, and we would just talk, and cry, and laugh. All 3 of my sisters and I were able to get together for dinner in February of 2020, which was the last time we were all together.
Toward the end, when she knew her fight was over, she handled it with such grace and strength, and a realism that I just admire. As Covid was gripping the planet, and shutting things down, for obvious reasons Kay and Bruce isolated, and we weren’t able to visit in person. But we spoke or texted often in her final months and weeks, and Kay and I played “Words with Friends” on our phones. Then I got a call from her on the Sunday before she died, and she simply said that she was checking out this week, so I should come over that afternoon to say goodbye. We had about a 90 minute visit, where we cried a lot, laughed some, sat in silence some, and said goodbye. It was sad and surreal, and fucked up. It was just so unfair. It made me mad. But we said goodbye, we had to, and she passed a couple days later.
We’re better as a family for having had Kay in our lives, and the planet and your communities, are better for having her too. We appreciate all the stories that have been shared Calla Lilly Rebel over the past 2 years, and today, of how Kay impacted your lives, or inspired your lives, and we’re inspired by how many lives she touched in her lifetime. There was so much about her I didn’t know. Her absence has left a hole, and we miss her.