Since I live in New Mexico and run a regional nonprofit where I’m a step removed from the trials and tribulations of Pacific Northwest advocacy, I didn’t get to know Kay nearly as well as I would have liked. But all of my meetings with her were memorable, and I always looked forward to my visits with her in Tacoma when I’d make my semi-annual pilgrimage to Washington state.
She was warm, funny, whip smart, and powerful. She held a clear-eyed view of the world that could be perceived as hard-edged cynicism but was, in my estimation, a profound conviction and determination to make the world a better place. In our conversations, she’d ask good, hard questions–questions that always navigated the conversation toward uncovering a sense of possibility and finding the pathway to make that possibility a reality.
I don’t know what her beliefs were, but there’s a part of me–who grew up in the industrial, blue-collar reaches of the Hudson Valley that doesn’t seem (metaphorically) too distant from Tacoma and Puget Sound–that she’s now joyfully traversing her home landscape which inspired her in all of its beauty and possibility, but free of the toxic pollution that sparked her too-soon passage from this world. Much love to her family and all who knew her well. She will be missed.
-Erik