Style Selector
| Apologies |
| Written by Paul | |||
| Friday, 20 April 2012 03:45 | |||
|
No update today, and I'm sorry for that. Author K. D. Wentworth, who has been a very dear friend of mine for over twenty years, died on Wednesday night. Her support of my work, honest critiques, and warm friendship were so important to me, and now I have to deal with the fact that she's gone. I knew she was ill, had been undergoing chemo for a 'non-malignant tumor' and had successful surgery to remove it. But her immune system was weakened - as it turns out fatally. She contracted pneumonia, went into the hospital, and died of heart failure. It seems like I have known her forever. When I first started coming to OSFW meetings in Tulsa she was the person I gravitated towards. She was like that - a person with great personal magnetism. If you knew Kathy, you wanted to be her friend, though she was actually quite selective in who she admitted into her circle. I will always be honored to have been one of those few. She never stopped urging me to write more, send in my work, and was always someone I could ask for honest advice and a helping hand. It breaks my heart that I had not seen her in so long, but she was a private person, and guarded her privacy. She didn't want anyone to know about her illness, and so I took it as an honor that she told me, and kept her secrets when she asked me to. She used to invite people to dinner at her grand house on Xmas Day, and it was one of the gatherings I looked forward too most eagerly. The last time she invited us we were snowed in - could not get out of the drive - and so we couldn't go. I remember thinking "next year", only after that she was sick, and company was out of the question. I never saw her again after that, and I regret that and always will. I will miss you, KD. I'm not the only one, for certain. But if you are anything like me and make friends with difficulty, then losing one is very hard. Very very hard.
Kathy Diane Wentworth 1951-2012
|
