Monday night Bear and I were sitting around watching TV with our bellies still full from the crazy big dinner I made for Conference Sunday, the dishes still sitting in dirty sinkwater, when the phone rings and Bear got some terrible news.
Katie, his best friend from high school, was killed in a car crash. She wasn’t even 30 years old.
Bear took it very hard, obviously, but I was immediately filled with a sense of peace. In our beliefs, the afterlife is a wonderful place. We don’t believe in a typical version of hell, just a number of heavenly “neighborhoods.” So Mormons don’t usually grieve in the traditional sense. We miss our loved ones, but we are also confident that this life is not the end and that we’ll see them again. So our funerals are rarely sob-fests where everyone dresses in black. We tend to dress nicely and cry daintily into our hankies as we remember the great life our loved one lived.
Of course that all changes when the person didn’t even make it to thirty. I don’t think I’d like to meet the person who isn’t shocked and hurt by that.
Although, I’m pretty close. I felt bad for Bear that he had to deal with me when he got the news. He was so grief-stricken and all I could say was I’m sorry. I tend to not be very sympathetic when it comes to death. I’ve lost so many people in my life that my usual reaction is to just shrug my shoulders, recognize I have no control over the matter, and move on. This probably makes me sound extremely callous, and maybe that’s true, but you lose your entire family and nearly every friend you’ve ever had in your life and then see if that doesn’t change you.
I was lucky enough to meet Katie on several occasions and she was a wonderful friend to Bear. Like every woman in Bear’s life, they dated once, but they’d been friends for years and years despite that. We got married so young, and in an environment where marriage was very nearly the sole goal, that most of our friends were not only unsupportive, but downright mean out of jealousy and bitterness. She was the lone voice cheering us on and saying we were perfect for each other.
She was so wild, and Bear is pretty sure that contributed to her death. That’s also what contributed to the end of their dating life. She respected the fact that Bear wanted to save sex for marriage and Boy, did she ever not, so she broke up with him so she wouldn’t corrupt him. But she never stopped taking care of him with thoughtful gestures and loving words.
My favorite Katie story is one year for Bear’s birthday, for whatever reason he didn’t want people to know about it. So she shows up to school with a card and balloons, but the card read “Congratulations on Your Retirement” and the balloons said “It’s A Boy,” “Get Well Soon,” and “Happy Anniversary.”
That pretty much sums Katie up in a nutshell. Always thoughtful, always taking care of those she loved. She will be missed. Even by my cold dead heart.