Last letter to Kate

 Reconnected with some friends this week that I had not seen in 10+ years and who did not know about Kate's fight with cancer. Our conversations inspired me to share my last message to Kate on September 1, 2013...three months before her death.

Kate-

Sue texted me this past Tuesday and told me that you had requested to be transferred to hospice care. That simple message hit me harder than I expected. I suppose that knowing that you were still fighting gave me a glimmer of hope that I would be able to continue to have you in my life and in the same world at the same time. I knew that my recent visit to Santa Rosa was to say "goodbye," but your continuing treatment allowed me to pretend that it was an overdue visit to an "old friend" (al la Prof. Hadley Arkes). Hearing that you, the ultimate fighter, had called an end to treatment said a lot.

So that you know, I believe that making this decision took a lot of courage and wisdom. And I hope that you are using this time...however the fuck you want to! Because that is your prerogative.

As I drove home Tuesday, I thought about the fact that I was going to need to explain some of this to some of the people I work with. (BTW - I work with some really great and special people.) Talking about my "ex-wife" just didn't seem to convey who you have been and are in my life. So how do I explain it? Here are some of the phrases that came to mind as I exited 280 onto Woodside Road (a familiar path from when we lived in that cottage in Los Altos):

1) She's the reason I came to California
2) She's the reason I got into sales
3) She's the reason I got into triathlons

4) Without Kate and the above, I wouldn't know any of y'all...because sales + triathlons led me to Oracle (via David Belden...who I met through Kate)

That was kind of intense. Then gravity took it one step further:

California + sales + triathlon -> was critical to my meeting Lindsay...to my having the family and the life that I have and love today. None of this would have happened without Kate Yang and the experiences (joyous and painful) that we shared from 1997 - 2003 (yes, 2003...I still remember and appreciate the concert that your band, Arcana Dei, did at PoundSF for the Team in Training benefit I hosted. It was a great show. The Pebble Theory guys were good. Y'all were great.)

(BTW - for ironic/ comic relief, I am sipping Bowmore Legend scotch as I write this. About 9 months ago I developed a somewhat nostalgic taste for your dad's go-to Scotch that we drank in Tahoe senior year. I think he was overly harsh on Ridge Wines, but he was right on Bowmore.)

The above landed right before I got to my driveway...in Redwood City...about 2 miles from the center of my "territory" at Edward Jones, my first sales job. The one you supported and challenged me to take.

Then I realized that some of the last comments I shared with you in Santa Rosa were a massive understatement. I said "I can draw a straight line from everything that is good in my life to the experiences we shared." I hope you will attribute this understatement to a combination of my remaining Southern-ness and a penchant for poetic devices. But you could also say that I just hadn't yet come to grips with what a massively important part of my life I was on the verge of losing.

And here's the thing. It's not about the coincidence of events from numbers 1-4 above. Those things happening on their own would not have led to the life I have today. Those things led to the life I have today because you saw greatness in me, and you refused to let me settle for being anything less. "She saw the potential in you before any other woman did...and I reaped the benefits." (Direct quote from Lindsay approx. 90 seconds ago as she stopped by to check in on me as I wrote this message.) I think she just summed this point up, so I am just going to say "thank you." And yes, sometime support does look like a kick in the ass. It worked. Thank you.

Kate, you are an amazing, beautiful, brilliant and talented woman. I am bored to the point of nausea when I think of where my life could have ended up without time we shared. Where would I be now? Atlanta? Charlotte? Maybe as far from home as Richmond, Virginia? But instead we threw the anchor in the deep end and moved to Rotterdam, NL to start the adult journey.

Thank you. Thank you for seeing greatness in me and for standing for me having that, and nothing less.

You have made a huge difference in the lives of many people, and I wanted to share some more insights on the impact you made on mine.

I will miss you.

I love you.

Your friend always,

Wallace...Senator...Walla-che..