Kitty and I were freshman roommates
at Middlebury College. Like your family, your freshman roommate is someone you
have to live with that you didn’t get to pick. I’m not going to lie - I did
start out with some major reservations about our relationship. Between her
southern heritage, tight relationship with her mom, different tastes in food
and music, different sleep schedule, and quirky Aspergerisms, I didn’t know if
we were going to click. Over the course of the year, though, we started to
discover an array of things we both loved: Veggie Tales, making fun of French
lit, dancing, eating sweets, writing papers to Enya songs, and talking about
God and boys. Not many freshman roommates become lifelong friends, but we did.
Eleven years ago today, it was a
gorgeous spring day on the Middlebury campus, and I was out on the quad
“studying for finals” when Kitty came and fetched me to help her with some
errand or other. We then went on a wild goose chase all over campus and town
and finally ended up back at our dorm room an hour or so later. When I opened
the door, the tiny room was filled to the brim with about 20 of our friends,
who yelled “Surprise!,” sang “Happy Birthday,” placed a sombrero on my head,
and presented me with a delectable cake. Kitty had been stressed that a million
things had gone wrong: people had leaked the surprise, the cake almost didn’t
work...when all along I was totally clueless and suspected nothing. I wish
Kitty was here to tell the story herself, because she has a way better memory
and is a much better storyteller than I am, but the day was emblematic of the
selfless, silly, loving friend that she was. We finished off the celebrations
with a birthday parade - one of my family’s traditions - that involves blasting
“The Stars and Stripes Forever” and marching around with ad-hoc instruments as
the birthday honoree leads the way. Let’s just say we got a lot of interesting
looks.
That was my 19th birthday, so if you’ve done the math, that means I’m turning 30 today. It’s kinda stressful, and I do feel old and unaccomplished - but more than anything, I feel lucky. It will never ever be fair that Kitty didn’t get to turn 30. We can talk about how much she did and all the ways she touched us in the time we had with her, but she would have kept doing all those things and touching us in even more ways if we had her for a hundred more years. There would be even more embarrassing stories and hilarious photos and languages she picked up and books she wrote. I promise I will do my best to live fully and give thanks for the blessings that I have, but I will always miss you, Mom (we called each other Mom). I look forward to you making me blush the moment we meet again.
