Dear Kathryn
Today the steel columns for One World Trade Center were erected, potentially making it the tallest building in America at 1,250 feet. Thought you should know.
I always want to write to you at the most inopportune times, like when I’m in the shower or about to drift off to sleep.
It doesn’t happen often. But when it does, my heart tightens and my nose feels funny, like it’s about to sneeze. My eyes well up.
Today’s news about One World Trade Center was one of those moments. I thought of this photo of you in Sumit’s collection on Flickr. And how he said in the caption that everything in it was gone.
Well the building is back, somewhat.
And you will always be in that odd little house of my heart, where you occupy one stunning room. It’s got berry walls, a grand chandelier and lots of flowers.
In that room we have tea and talk about the cancer that bound us together, online. How we had the same stage and what we planned to do after we got through it.
I was so relieved to find someone who understood things other people didn’t, like why I wanted my bedsheets changed everyday so I didn’t have to stare at the same flower patterns hour after hour.
How peeing into a bag sucks. How watching your pee go into the bag sucks even more, especially when you see the protein deposits and the blood. How no sarong could ever adequately cover a urine bag strapped to your thigh.
I looked like I had an erection in the wrong places. Remember?
You understood why I had to have my hair done before I went into hospital. Why I had to feast on beef cheeks at Spoon. Why I went on a shopping bender the night before, and bought a bottle of Bobbi Brown’s Beach.
I know, as if I’d use it. To this day I retch when I smell the fragrance on anyone.
Remember that photo of your eye with one eyebrow hair clinging on for dear life? I admired you for not wanting to pluck it out. I admired you for going back to work while you were still being treated.
I made it to Corfu, where you told me to write you about lemon trees and dark-skinned men. Then your emails stopped.
I was in Beijing when I got the news. I rang Sumit. He had no idea who this blubbering stranger was calling all the way from China.
It took a pound of Laura Mercier’s Secret Camouflage to hide my eyebags the next day. But I had to be at the top of my game. I was at our first company conference.
I still don’t understand to this day why I made it and you didn’t. We had the same illness, the same stage. You were braver than me. Younger than me.
You loved New York, unlike me. And the view from the observation deck of the World Trade Center.
The new building will be finished, fingers crossed, in 2013. I’ll make sure to visit and have a drink for you.
Your comrade in arms
Alicia
Kathryn Oates was 35 when she passed away in 2005. I recommend reading her husband Sumit’s tribute to her. She will always be missed.
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