One of the hardest things about aging is that not all your friends get to live a long life. I got hit with two of those whammies yesterday after getting back to Enterprise. Still processing these deaths, and I don’t know how eloquent I can be.
I can’t remember now when I first met Kate Yule, whether it was at a mutual friends’ Christmas party or at Orycon. Her bubbly, infectious laughter; her wry, sharp, wit; and her wordplay all struck me as engaging and fun. But I was in the early days of motherhood and didn’t have much time to hang out with Kate other than at Orycon or gatherings of mutual friends. I remember when she first got together with David Levine and thinking that there was quite a couple. Kate and David started putting out a small zine called Bento that they handed out to friends every Worldcon. Cracked me up. Kate never lured me into knitting, but I remember her knitting at conventions and enjoyed listening to her talk about it. At one point, I shared a jam making interest with Kate and gave her some plums and maybe other fruit to preserve–I can’t remember now, and of course it’s all been eaten. But I enjoyed reading her accounts of the adventures she and David had, and talking to her at conventions, and just all sorts of good stuff. When she first got sick, I was in the throes of setting up our current two-house lifestyle, so wasn’t able to do as much as I wanted to help. But…a couple of visits, brought over some food and produce. Not enough but it was what I could do at the time. And now she’s gone.
I met Sue Bolich at either Radcon or Miscon, I can’t remember which now. Sue was part of a circle of women writer friends who shared a lot of experiences, and even though we didn’t see eye-to-eye in our political philosophies with regard to candidates, in practical applications we were a lot closer than it might seem. I enjoyed Sue’s writing and meeting with her at conventions, where we could always swap horse stories and speculate on writing ideas. She was one of my favorite people to encounter and gave cancer a long, hard fight. I last saw Sue at Westercon. She was frail but still holding on, and I was hoping to see her at either Orycon or Radcon or Miscon again.
Alas, not to be, for either Kate or Sue.
