Connections

This necklace, see? A Kwakiutl-styled orca. Kay wore it for many years. One day she gave it to me, and I was a little floored, because I associated it so strongly with her and thought it so lovely—how could she give it away? “I’m out of my hippie phase,” she said. Years later, wearing this necklace, I reminded her of that and we had a good laugh. I’ve had the necklace for so many years now, it feels completely mine. But today I remember it was yours, Kay.

Kay and I met in San Francisco—young, fired-up, eager to Save the Earth. But each of us happened to have recently injured a leg, and so we were forced to lag behind as McTaggart and the others took big manly strides ahead on the way to the pizza place, leaving us in the dust. And leaving me a chance to talk with and start to get to know this smart, compassionate, funny, wise woman from the Seattle office. You know how there are some people who you just like and click with right away? (I can guess I am not alone in this—I suppose we all felt that way about Kay.) So if I had to have a bum knee, best to have it at the same time Kay had hers. Our friendship began as we limped along together. Lucky me.

Over the next forty years, Kay—and Bruce—and I crossed paths in many places—various nascent (and later, crumbling) Greenpeace offices, campaign sites, the Black Hills of South Dakota for the Survival Gathering, our homes in various states—for a time, we even actually lived in the same town of Olympia, WA. So I think now of snippets of Kay from various places and times: when she was pregnant and adorably wearing overalls that made her look like she was smuggling a beach ball; singing (Rebecca! I remember too!); setting in front of me a plate or bowlful of yet another wonderful meal; in Tacoma Park, as a proud mama showing me a bright picture of a desert Nathan had drawn; as a happy grandma sending me a video of toddler Collin careening across a kitchen floor; and way back when, I remember her with a stuffed (felt?) creature someone had made for her, with the words “We’ve Got To Stop Them!” coming out of its mouth. And oh, and if everyone had worked half as hard for half as long as you did, dear Kay, what a better world we would be leaving our children.

Kay and a mutual friend were in New Zealand when word came that a man I love had died suddenly. She and Liz were perhaps the only two people in Greenpeace who knew both that I had to be told and where to find me, far away from phones, living for the summer near Mount St Helens. From NZ, they contacted the Forest Service in Washington state, and sent someone—convinced this poor soul he had to make a many-long-miles trip—to tell me the worst news I could receive. Kay made sure I learned in time to get on a plane, and to hold his ashes and say goodbye before he joined the ocean at last. It took me weeks to work out how word had come to me—incredibly—in the middle of nowhere.

So, after all these years and all these meetings in various places, will we also get to meet again on the other side? I’m not the type to have much hope—or faith—in that. But I can imagine that I will meet you again someday, somewhere, unaware, the molecules of you reconstituted into caterpillar or orca or chickadee or (yes!) calla lily.

Thank you for all the years, for all the laughs, for all the love.

Patty