I woke up this morning with a phrase in my mind. Turned backward from the normal, and right because of that. May her soul have mercy on God. I met Kate Harding on a Tuesday evening in October 1996. The internet forgets nothing, and tells me that it was the 22nd. The same list of events reminds me of two previous occasions on which I might have encountered her in passing, but I believe that had I spoken with her on either of them I would have remembered. One does not forget Kates full attention. On the evening of Tuesday 22nd October 1996, Kate and her best friend Amanda ate chicken and chips, and then needed to transform themselves respectively into Meridian Macey-Dare and Aesha van Dieman. They needed the tissues I happened to be carrying before they could touch their costumes. Both were suprisingly grateful, but I soon realised how much these transformations mattered to them both. Naturally Meridian Macey-Dare, adventuress extraordinaire, turned out to be a false identity for a Russian noble. Kate always committed to her fiction, and would not pretend to be one person when she could pretend to be two. My second truly important memory of Kate involved food too, and must have been close to a year later. As a poor student, a bacon sandwich was an impressive gift to me, especially coming from the housemate of the person I was really there to see. I will never know whether this gift and the urgent phrase Have more bacon! Have more bacon! signified as much to her as they did to me. It seems unlikely, since all it really was, was the moment I realised I had a friendship coming my way. Kate intended that already. I could not have known then how joyful that friendship would be, or how special my friend, how wonderful and magical. The memory pushes it all to one point. Since then Kate was one of my people, and I was one of hers. Kate gave me many other things. Most of all her time, which alone would have been gift enough. Her insight. Her advice and support through some tough patches. Her mockery when I needed it, since I am a man who appreciates mockery and she read me well enough to know when to give it. One time an angel made from a shuttlecock, with paper wings and a piped icing face. Another time a total eclipse of the sun, which astronomers claim has something to do with the moons orbit. My ability to see it had much to do with the very generous hosting of Kates grandmother and parents. I know this but still, to me, it was another experience Kate arranged for her friends to enjoy together. She gave me transient things that last forever. Of course the games. The play-acting through which many of us were working out how to live. At one time or another Kate has become, for a few hours at a stretch, a sister to me, a lover, a daughter or a wife. Sometimes an enemy, but still a joy and always an inspiration. We pretended those relationships, but what was real, what we were both saying, was I love you, I trust you, and we will always be friends. Turned backward from the normal, any time she knew the normal was wrong. May her soul have mercy on God. I dont believe in God, and Kate might have laughed at that inconsistency. To those who do believe and are offended I apologise, it is not my intent to say anything about Him. But what my sleeping mind was saying about Kate is true. Those who loved her feared her judgement, and rightly so. When she told you what was wrong with you, it was not to complain. It was because she knew she could make you see it too, and make you a better person for seeing. It is a privilege to have known that the world had such a person in it. It is an outrage that the world, through her illness, tied Kate down and stopped her doing what she loved, that those around her loved too. I should have done more for her. But, if everyone who loved Kate spent as much time with her as they wanted to and could have done, then she would not have had a moments peace in over 40 years. To within a month, I knew Kate for 18 years. Within a month, half my life. It was easily the better half. I have had nothing but love and happiness from her over those years and I am a better person for it. Thank you, Kate, and good bye. I love you.
Posted on: Sun, 05 Oct 2014 11:46:56 +0000
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