Friday, July 28, 2006 | by nathan

It’s A Stupid, Unfair World

Back when I kept office hours at the Gazette I worked with a wonderful woman named Karen. She was funny and snarky, intelligent and immensely helpful in helping me to find my legs in the editorial basement. While I loved almost everything about my internship, and really enjoy everyone with whom I worked, I liked Karen especially.

Karen was battling lung cancer from the moment I met her. Every day I would ask her about her doctor’s appointments and her treatments, and she and I would agree that in some way, George W. Bush was absolutely to blame for her illness. I like that in a girl. While I was working in the editorial department Karen had surgery to remove a large section of her lung that had been overcome with tumors. She was out for six weeks, and in her absence I was trained in a big part of her job, which was typing in the entertainment listings for which the Gazette is locally revered and sought out. I liked the work, but missed Karen. When she came back - weakened but excited to get out of bed and back to work - I was ecstatic.

One day I went to lunch at my favorite place, Galileo, and while there I walked across the street to a little boutique in the Paseo Arts District. As I walked around the boutique I saw a little blue ceramic hippo. He was this beautiful shade of blue - the color of peace for me - and he had some beautiful carved lines on him. He fit in my palm, and I bought him, because I felt I needed something to hang on to.

I named him Zippy the Hippy Hippo.

When I got back to the office Karen was over the moon about Zippy, and as she was set to go on leave for her operation the next day, I sat him on her desk for the rest of the day. I thought of telling her to take Zippy with her while she was gone, but for some reason I didn’t. I’m not sure why - it’s not like I was so married to Zippy that I wanted him all to myself. I just thought, "What a feeble gesture."

Karen died last night, almost exactly 24 hours prior to my writing of this post. I had only seen her once since my internship was over, and I was rushing into a meeting with my editor and couldn’t talk to her for very long. I gave her a big hug on my way out.

Now she is gone and all I can think is how much I wish I’d have given Zippy to her.

Her funeral is on Monday. Erica’s wedding is on Saturday. This next week of my life is going to be like some horrible British film.

At a wedding I went to in 2004 I asked a friend, "Is it weird that funerals make me think of sex, and weddings make me think of death?" 

She replied, "I thought I was the only one who felt that way." 

Brian and I are going camping tomorrow. I think it will do me good to get out of my thinky thoughts for a couple days, to relax with a beer in one hand and a book in the other. We drove to Chickasha today so Brian could fill up his car with free gas from his dad’s convenience store. It started to storm on the way down, and the plains looked like this:

It’s not much, but it’s all I got. 

Karen’s my friend, and I’m going to miss her a whole lot.

The whole drive down I kept listening to Patty Griffin’s song "Long Ride Home" and watching the rain and lightning and sunset; it looked like the storm was trying to wrap itself around something that wanted to explode out - a shaft of light shooting straight upward here, a Jacob’s ladder there.

The plains are good for that kind of reflection, for reminding you how much bigger the sky is than just anything at all.

I don’t care whether you’re the praying kind or not. I once considered myself far too couth for prayer; but please send a quick one up for Karen’s family. Her daughter works at the Gazette as well and is going to miss her mother a lot.

Death sucks. 

This I Believe