I'll Miss You, Kathy Lee

I thought I lost my friend, Kathy to cancer about a year ago.  She quit posting on Facebook.  And I didn't know her mom well enough to call and ask what was going on.  I mean, you don't want to call and ask to speak to Kathy if she just died.

But I lost her for real yesterday.

Kathy started to work as a Juvenile Court Probation Officer at the Sandy Office about a month after I did.  In 1984.  I was just out of college and had worked six months at Youth Corrections.  She had finished her Bachelors at BYU, and Masters at William And Mary in Virginia.  Her dad was a, "spook" for the CIA back there, so she went there to get her masters in school counseling.

We had such a lousy boss, that he told us we should go to all the local high schools and meet the Vice Principals in charge of attendance and discipline.  But he wouldn't take us to meet them (since he never had bothered to, himself) and then when we did that?  He accused us of goofing off all day since we weren't in the office.

The old house our office was in was in need of repair.  Kathy and I painted the basement so she could have an office down there.

Kathy was very pretty.  Blonde, kind of a California surfer girl look.  So since she and I spent so much time together trying to learn the job, because no one was teaching us how to do it, every one assumed the worst.

During the time we worked together, I introduced her to my friends, Jim who she dated a few times, and Gary from the Police Academy who became her only husband (and it was not a good thing.  I have regretted that for ever) and I married, Deb.  Our relationship was not like THAT at all.

She left the Juvenile Court long before I did to take a job as a counselor at a Jr. High in the Provo School District.  That's what her Master's Degree was in.

We still kept in touch for years.  She would come up to Salt Lake County to spend a day skiing with me and then go to dinner with Deb and I.  And Meagan, who was only a year old.  Then she would spend the night in on the couch in the guest room of the first Murray house (the one, Meagan calls to this day, "the teeny house", and it was) before going home to Provo the next day.

After she married Gary, and moved back to Provo from South Salt Lake, I kind of lost touch with her.  Found out later that it was because the guy I introduced her to, and thought was such a great guy, turned out to be such and abusive prick, she couldn't have any contact with her old friends.

We kept in touch by email after she kicked him to the curb and he moved back to Texas.  But we never skied together again. And she wouldn't come up to Salt Lake very often.  And everyone knows how much I love Utah County.

So we kind of quit hanging out. And didn't keep in touch.

But one day she sent an email.  She was pregnant.  And very happy.  She had met a guy, an attorney from Arizona.  They were very happy, going to get married. She might move to Arizona.  I was thrilled for her.

Then the emails started to get darker.  Turns out attorney did NOT want to be a father, and WOULD not acknowledge he was the father.  Kathy started to refer to him not as the father, but as, "The Sperm Donor".  I guess he hid behind the courts in Arizona.  But Kathy had a daughter, Sarah.  And she was thrilled.

Then, she found out she had breast cancer.

I'm glad I reached out to her a few years ago.  Danny was playing soccer in Utah County a lot, and Kathy came to one of his games, got to meet him and see Deb and I.

I called her a couple of years ago, and drove down there to take her to lunch.  She had had a double mastectomy, was in Chemo and had lost her hair, but felt pretty good about her chances.  Always positive.

But after that, she kind of quit keeping in touch.  I talked her into doing a Facebook page, but she only really worked it for a little while.

I wish I'd kept in better touch.  She had to quit working and go on disability.  She just couldn't work any more.

So now?  I guess I go back and look for some pictures in the stuff that isn't in the computer.  And hope her mom sends out a message like she did last night on Facebook, so I know when the funeral is.  I'll go to Utah County for that.

I'm going to miss my friend, even though I didn't see her much for the last 20 years.  The emails, and just knowing she was out there?  That was good.

I guess the lesson in this is don't let 40 miles keep you apart.  You might regret it.

Good bye, Kathy Lee.  You were a great person.  And even though you couldn't beat me to the bottom of the mountain?  I'd have to say you were still, "A Hot Ski" cause you could beat my ass down the moguls, and you looked a lot better in ski pants than I ever would!

I will miss you.  And I'm glad you were a part of my life.