Checking in

Sorry for disappearing so long. The baby blanket is still not done, and the last week or so has been quite stressful.

A week ago yesterday, on the 16th, one of my co-workers fainted at work. She came to in just a few seconds, and by the time someone came and got me, she was sitting up and talking, although she was very, very pale. We called 911 and the EMTs took her to the ER. Several hours later, while she was waiting to be discharged, she fainted again. This time, she didn't come to and couldn't be revived. She passed away 2 days before her 33rd birthday, probably from a pulmonary embolism.

Kathy was an amazing health sciences librarian. She had only been in the profession for 5 years, but was a real inspiration to a lot of people. You can read about her work with the College of Medicine here.

She was also a great person -- one of the smartest people I've met, with a huge streak of silly. She's also the friend from whom I got Dolly.

Here family flew in from California, and at first thought they didn't want any sort of funeral or service. We told them that we thought the library staff would like one, and the next thing I knew, I was planning a memorial service, which was held on Saturday. We held it in a lecture hall that Kathy spent quite a bit of time in, and had around 140 people in attendance. I lined up several people to talk about their relationships with Kathy -- a couple people from the library, a couple med school faculty and a student, and finally, Kathy's mother and father. The I asked if anyone else wanted to speak, and 4 or 5 people did. We had a series of photos running on a loop on the screen behind the speakers. It was a nice service, and I know her family is glad we did it.

Her family also asked if I would take her other cat, Vinnie, a 15 year old grouchy old man of a cat. He's upstairs in my 'office,' hiding behind the bed and growling and snarling whenever I go in. But he's eating and using the litter box, so I think he'll be okay. Once he comes out from behind the bed, I'll take a picture!