Kathi's Coats
One of our first bonding experiences (after discovering our mutual mania for the Beatles) was the discovery of our mutual cold intolerance. As college roommates returning from fall break, we simultaneously stormed into the room with boxes full of pile and wool clothing we'd brought from home. We burst out laughing simultaneously, too. Her laugh. It made you bouncy inside. She loosened it freely and frequently in response to my humor. Another thing I loved about her. She was one of my best audiences.
We also laughed about our tiny heads, bemoaning the fact that hats would never fit us. They would creep down over our eyes so that we resembled shady ladies about to sneak away with an extra muffin in the breakfast line. Hats would easily blow off our heads. We joked that we probably wouldn't make it through college because we must have pea brains. I don't know that I would have made it without her. She was tranquility to my drama, groundedness to my flightiness, focus to my dispersed inner being. I referred to her then, and continued to do so for many years as "The Rock". Her tolerance to me was commendable. My half of the room was a vivid landscape of my inner turmoil the year we roomed together. Clothes flung over desk and chairs, shoes whose partners had gone missing dotting my rug, dirty laundry piled willy nilly, bedcovers in a constant state of roiling rumple. Her side was pristine and ordered. She could locate anything in a split second. Before Christmas, I snuck a pet rabbit into our room and, foregoing a cage to be able to hide evidence of it at a moments' notice, I let it run freely. It never could find an open spot on my bed. So it pooped on hers. That did not elicit laughter. The rabbit went home with me at winter break. Kathi continued to room with me.
She began chemo treatments in the early fall of 2020. When her hair fell out, she fretted about being cold in the coming winter. I shipped two cloiche' hats to her. When they arrived, she told me she'd laughed. They were the exact ones she'd been thinking of ordering for herself. But she worried they wouldn't fit. They fit! She texted me a photo of her wearing one...my favorite...burgundy color. There was a huge grin on her face. I could hear that laugh again.
It wasn't supposed to happen. Doctors told her the cancer was treatable. She would recover. Kathi believed them. She believed passionately in science. Her father was a scientist. She followed to the letter every instruction given by her medical team and everything she'd researched herself. She had confidence that the treatments were curing her right up until she slipped into her final coma. When frankly asked, just prior, "Do you think you're dying?" her answer was a firm "No."
Afterwards, her husband invited her closest friends to choose items of hers to keep. Among mine were three warm, exquisitely made coats. Kept impeccably. There was no indication she'd ever worn them, but I knew she did because of some tissues I found in pockets. And a few coins. Even the pure while coat didn't have a smudge on it.
I also kept the hats. Both of them.
I eventually gave away the white coat to a more worthy owner. It broke my heart to part with it, but better to find it a good home than to ruin it with my sloppy ways. The other items, plus a pink wind breaker, and two heavy sweaters followed me to Italy. I wore them all this winter. Wrapped in Kathi. Still able to laugh at my own cold woosi-ness.
This house, named after my father, pays tribute to so many people in my life through the items in it. Tribute to those I've loved and still love:
An afghan my dad crocheted while recovering from a WWII gunshot wound;
Items bought in places each of my children live or have lived: Pillow buttons from Philadelphia, Bath towels from Brooklyn, Kitchen linens from Los Angeles;
A quilted wall hanging pieced from my mother's cotton house dresses;
My grandmother's dishes and teapot;
Favorite dessert dishes from Gregg's mother;
A candy dish from Barb - my other best bud and partner in so many adolescent adventures;
Boots from my former partner in theater crime - Camilla.
An inked footprint of my newborn granddaughter.
Walking around the house, I see, hear, smell, and live with those loved ones. I feel their spirits. I am reminded that this is a house and a life that all of them helped me make in one way or another. Like Kathi's coats, I am always wrapped in them.
