24 Responses

  1. Colleen Coyle
    Colleen Coyle at |

    The power of Google. I started out trying to find an old friend, Mary Ediger, ended up on your blog, and now sit here sadly reading this.

    Kathleen and I worked together at her (first?) teaching job at Viscount Elementary in Coquitlam. She was a force of nature! We spent many lunch hours chatting at a small soup restaurant off the school grounds. It was only my second year teaching so we bonded over our new shared experiences. Mary was teaching in Burnaby, and I had done PDP with Mary, so we had that connection as well.

    Your post about Kathleen is so beautifully written. Even though it is years since her passing, it is fresh for me right now and I appreciate reading your eulogy.

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  2. Sarah Doherty
    Sarah Doherty at |

    Colleen,
    Your testimony of love for Kathleen through your beautiful writing and speech yesterday has given me a new orientation on my internal compass toward the meaning of love and friendship, life and death and the joy and pain that binds it all. Thanks.

    Reply
  3. Janet Schmidt
    Janet Schmidt at |

    Your words are always so easy to connect to. I am so very sorry for your loss. When you travel a road with someone and then they don’t proceed thru the stop sign you are left looking around even though you knew it was coming. Hugs to you all. I was going thru my old photo album from a Bogie Party and have a great photo of Kathleen for you if you want.

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  4. Dee Dee
    Dee Dee at |

    you made me cry…in a good way.

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  5. Ann
    Ann at |

    Simply beautiful Colleen…. your love for her is very apparent.
    RIP Kathleen 🙁

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  6. Sophie Berner
    Sophie Berner at |

    Incredibly touching and heartfelt words, Colleen, bringing tears to my eyes and an ache in my heart….for you, and for a woman I wish I would have met and known. Please know that I am sorry for your loss, and hope you will find strength in knowing you made a positive difference in Kathleen’s life.

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  7. Laurie
    Laurie at |

    So glad to run into you today and be able to give you a great big long lovey hug. There is no ‘good part’ in dying, no moment where the heaviness lifts… only the trudging weight and deep companionship that means so much in such a time. Dying brings a terrible beauty, and I know from your writing and from knowing you that each death casts a dark pearl into the jewel of your soul, where it is burnished and somehow casts a glow into the furthest reaches of who you are, and because of that is a preciousness I hope I will seize if I am offered the opportunity to love and care for someone who is dying. This is how they stay alive and truly become a part of us.

    It is so easy to begin to love, isn’t it? Like the day you walked into my office needing a web site and I just fell head over heels into a snorkage-laden friendship with you. And each new friendship I make I have to remind myself that it carries the seed of the parting as well.

    As I get older the hows and whys of friendship become more important as I realize how I want to be with those I love, and watching your friendship with Kathleen, your care, your staunch weathering of it all has taught me so many of those things I want and need to know.

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  8. Martha Melling
    Martha Melling at |

    A lovely poem with a great life lesson.

    What a wonderful tribute to your dear friend Kathleen, who accomplished so much … gone too soon! She left a hole in your heart that will be hard to fill.

    Hugs.

    Reply
  9. Kelly Sabo
    Kelly Sabo at |

    Oh my gosh I’m so saddened, we had lost touch and of course I had no idea…..but as you know I can still see her, hear her, feel her like it was yesterday….we were very close growing up, she was in my bridal party…..what a lovely tribute you gave her life Colleen, I will re-read when I’m not in shock… Please be in touch and help me with unanswered questions when you feel you can, just of course the obvious….her children, family, and any memorial/service there may be….I’m so sorry for you and all of us who had the pleasure of Kathy in our lives, she was one of a kind <3

    Reply
  10. Kathy Provost
    Kathy Provost at |

    Thank you Colleen. You have expressed it as you so often do, beautifully. Good bye Kathleen, you have had a wonderful friend here on this journey.

    Reply
  11. Gwen Morrison
    Gwen Morrison at |

    Colleen, what an amazing tribute to your friend. And a good reminder to all of us that the phrase “life is short” is more than some off-the-cuff thing we say. It’s real. Death is real. We will leave someone behind who loved us. And being the one left behind kinda sucks sometimes, doesn’t it?

    I know you struggled with so many emotions I can’t even imagine. I wish you peace and love and lots of laughs in days to come. You are one helluva friend.

    Thank you so much for letting us inside your heart as you made this journey with her.

    Love you, my friend.

    Reply

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