Today I attended the funeral of a friend, Kate Blesi (aka sleazy blesi). Kate was not sleazy, but it rhymed with Blesi, and therefore it was one of her nicknames.
Kate was smart and fun. She loved life; even before hers was shattered with a cancer diagnosis. She fought hard for 15 years. I'm sure there were many ups and downs during that time. But, never did Kate share her worries and let on how she felt. If you asked her how she was, she was always good. I do recall one conversation we had early on in the journey. She was on the operating table and heard the doctors saying "we losing her, we're losing her". And her response was "the hell you are!". That pretty much sums up how she lived with cancer.
In April, Kate retired from Medtronic after 34 years. I suspected it was due to her health, but she said it was because of changes at work that she wasn't thrilled about. I'm guessing that she hid from us the real truth, which may have been a little of both.
I met Kate about 25-30 years ago when I first started golfing at Greenhaven. We golfed and saw each other at JR's and other "events", and she also became one of the Breezy Babes. This picture was taken on one of the Breezy Babes weekends at Breezy Point. It was too nice to golf, so we rented a pontoon and spent the day on the lake. Kate didn't like having her picture taken, but I got this one and I like it because it shows her smile and she looks so relaxed and peaceful (which trips to Breezy were not).
Kate was pretty funny about some things. For example, none of us that she golfed with knew exactly how old she was. The obituary didn't have her birth date in it, the announcement at the funeral home showed the birth month and day, but no birth year. The Anoka Union, however, made a big mistake and listed her birth as Nov. 16, 1947. Kate was 63 years old.
So, now that you know a little about Kate, here's why I'm writing about her today:
Kate was a friend of mine, but in this modern day with all our technology (Internet, Facebook, email, cell phones, voicemail, etc.) I didn't know she was dying. I wish Kate would have told me (or any of the other girls). We could have been there for her. Most of the girls say Kate did it her way. I don't know that I believe that. Obviously she didn't tell us, but it's not so obvious to me that she wanted to do it without her friends knowing. Which made me think that I wasn't a very good friend to her; I should have known.
It's a fast, busy world. We work, play, sleep and then get up and do it again and again and again. We do what we have to do, some things we want to do, but we don't always take the time we should to be a true friend to our friends.
It makes me sad that I didn't get to tell Kate how much I cared about her. She may have wanted to do this her way, but I'd bet everything I have that she wouldn't have turned me away had I called her to say "hi, how are you?"
I'm going to focus on the people in my life; family and friends alike. There is no guarantee that we'll see them tomorrow, and hopefully, we won't ever have to fight cancer to know how precious our life is. If you love someone, tell them. If you have friends, check in on them every once in awhile. Maybe you don't have anything to say. But, maybe they do.
And, that's all I have to say about that.
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