Remembering Kathy
Last Sunday I got a call from my sister Julie in Portland. I was all set to have a good chat and catch up on all her news, but she said she had some sad news to share with me first. She had been looking through that day’s Oregonian newspaper, and in glancing over the names and pictures in the obituaries, a face she recognized jumped out at her. She told me that my college roommate and friend, Kathy Healy, had died. Julie gave me the details from the article as I went in search of my own copy of the paper and tried to wrap my head around this news.
I met Kathy during my freshman year at Oregon College of Education (later to become Western Oregon University), where we were on the same dorm floor. My first impressions were that she was a bit quiet but always had a smile and a positive attitude. Towards the end of that year my roommate, Diane, and I were looking for another girl to join us in a four-person suite for the next year, and Kathy indicated she’d be happy to join us.
For the next three years, we three shared a dorm room and then an off-campus apartment. I soon learned that in addition to her sunny outlook, Kathy also had a keen sense of humor and a sharp wit that teased but never stung. She could make you laugh at yourself, but just as often she was poking fun at her own foibles. I remember her delight at convincing a few gullible dormmates that she was a Native American princess. The fact that she was from The Dalles (terminus of the Oregon Trail and close to the Warm Springs Indian Reservation) and had a lovely olive complexion (courtesy of her mom’s Italian heritage and the eastern Oregon sun) aided in her deception, but I didn’t know how she managed to not give herself away by laughing while telling her tale. That is what I remember most about Kathy — her beautiful smile and her delighted and delightful giggle.
We never had a class together — Kathy was studying to be a special ed teacher and I was into literature and drama — but we shared daily life and a few summer adventures together. A few years after graduation when I married, she was one of my bridesmaids, and then shortly after that she moved to California. We never discussed why, exactly, she left behind her parents and her three brothers, all of whom she loved fiercely and who loved her as devotedly, but I think she was a bit restless to bust out and make a change in her life and get out on her own a bit. She worked in the airline industry for quite a while, and it was in California that she met her husband and started a family.
The last time I saw Kathy was more than 10 years ago. We’d brought our girls to Disneyland for spring break one year, and we took an evening to drive out and visit Kathy and her family in Redondo Beach. Her kids were very young, one had a bad cold, and my girls were hungry and squirmy, so it wasn’t the best of circumstances to catch up. I could see, though, that even with all the concerns and hassles of a working mom, Kathy still had her sparkle and sense of humor. Since then we continued to exchange Christmas cards, and then somewhere along the way Kathy’s stopped coming, and I wasn’t sure that mine were getting through.
Through the obituary I learned that Kathy returned to teaching special education students about 10 years ago, and that she taught right up until three weeks before the cancer she’d been fighting for two years took her life. I was glad to read that she was teaching, for her sweet nature and generous and fun-loving spirit made her an excellent teacher. And it didn’t surprise me at all to hear how she faced her illness with courage and humility, because that is the Kath I knew.
My heart goes out to her family, especially to her two daughters and son and her husband Chris. Although we have been out of touch these last several years, I feel the loss of Kathy’s sweet and generous soul. The world was certainly a better place because she was here.
–Patty Vanikiotis, proofreader
