Farewell to a friend

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My eulogy for my dear friend Karen Heiber.

We’re all gathered here today because of a dear common friend: the amazing Karen Heiber. In a way, you could see this as the final stop on her farewell tour. And in her very organized way, this is her show!

After having had the privilege of being her friend and bearing witness to and sharing — albeit from afar — in the struggle of her cancer journey, I’ve been thinking a lot about the nature of friendship, and how you don’t always know when meeting someone for the first time what types of intense experiences you will share with them as a friendship develops, or what impact they will have on your life.

I have met many of my friends through my work at this university, and we have gone on many journeys together. My friend Sandy is your volunteer bartender today. When I met her on my first day of work here I didn’t think “Oh, here is the woman who will be the labour coach for two of my childbirths and provide support and counsel during some of my life’s hardest moments.”

But that is indeed what happened.

And when I met Karen as I interviewed her to replace me for my third maternity leave, I didn’t think “Oh, here is a person with whom I will share some crazy fun times and laughter, whose quirky sense of humour will make her a joy to be friends with, who will come to my rescue during some intense life challenges, and who will teach me about generosity, resilience, and compassion as she makes her final journey a community event shared by those she loves the world over, via the power of social media.”

But that is indeed what happened.

I couldn’t tell you precisely what my other two maternity leave replacements are up to today, but Karen and I, along with Mike and Daryl, struck up a friendship that endured.

So I guess in a way we can thank my son Miles, who is turning 11 next Friday, for bringing us together and bringing Karen and Mike to Chilliwack.

Karen and Mike had two stints in Chilliwack. They stayed here from 2003 through 2006 as she worked my mat leave and then another year at UFV and Mike used his writing talent and hometown boy insider knowledge to do some excellent journalistic work for the Chilliwack Times. Then they lit out for Toronto for a dose of big city life. They came back to the Wack for a second time, during which Karen honed her entrepreneurial talents through a brief career as the Lash Lady. I served as a guinea pig in this eyelash-enhancing entrepreneurial endeavour. Then the lure of work and family in Saskatchewan sent them eastward again in 2010.

While we weren’t that far apart in age — she was five years older — we did lead very different lives during the times she lived in Chilliwack. I enjoyed Karen’s camaraderie at work and knew that she and Mike would be cool people to hang with, but for much of the decade I was juggling the competing priorities of working and raising three kids, two of them with significant health challenges.

She was sometimes in awe of how intense that juggling act would be, and I would summarize it to her thus: “you just have to effing do it.” Except I wouldn’t say effing. I would use the real swear word.

But we managed to squeeze in time for some fun together. On several occasions she created multi-course gourmet dinners for Daryl and I. Such a treat! A nice break from the kids and an honour to have someone work so hard to make great food on our behalf. Then they would come over and experience the mayhem of a three-kid, three-cat, one-dog household and be particularly charmed by the roguish hospitality of Miles. Mike usually went down to defeat in Wii boxing and Wii fencing against his four-year-old nemesis. Miles would then declare triumphantly ‘I winning, I winning!’ Mike suffered as Miles dangled a dirty sock in front of his nose and taunted him with the phrase ‘Mell it! Mell it!’

We all went to see Lucinda Williams together in Vancouver, and dined out on a few occasions.

And Karen did know how to have fun! There was that wacky sense of humour, combined with a rebel edge. And while I respected and supported her eventual decision to embrace sobriety, there was nobody more fun to have a few drinks with.

On the last night of her UFV contract, we drank our way through the martini menu and wine list at Bravo, the local bistro. At a goodbye lunch a few days before, she enjoyed a few cocktails and a few smokes on the patio before heading back to the office to work into the night to meet her last deadlines.

In addition to her witty side, her fun side, her quirky side, her rebel side, and her generous side, Karen had a compassionate side.

When Miles was a toddler he fell heavily into the grips of asthma and was hospitalized four times in six months, with numerous other emergency visits thrown in.

It was about this time nine years ago — exactly nine years ago tomorrow, to be precise — when I was trying to finish off a 24-page community report due to go into the local papers as a supplement, when Miles started to go downhill rapidly again, just days before his second birthday. Knowing and dreading the fact that I was headed to the hospital for a few days, I made a frantic Hail Mary phone call to Karen supplemented by an email detailing the myriad last-minute task that needed attending to for the community report. Karen stayed and worked day and night and weekend to get my stuff done in addition to her own and met my (now our) important deadline. Unsung hero, baby!

Then she came and visited me in said hospital/baby jail and brought me food. It’s hard to leave a toddler behind metal crib bars to go to the cafeteria and visitors are so very welcome.

Late in her tenure in Chilliwack Karen discovered Hicks Lake, northeast of Harrison, and began camping there with her man and her mum and her dog. My favourite kind of camping is when you can just drop in on friends who are doing the actual camping, and join them for a lake swim, dinner, and a campfire, and we did so on a few occasions.

By the time 2010 came around things were getting slightly less hectic in my household and I was better able to embrace the idea of adult friendships and childless outings.

So I was sad when they decided to pull up stakes once again and head to Saskatoon. I have a bit of an abandonment complex, and have said goodbye to a few too many people in my life for my liking, so I didn’t expect to have much to do with Karen in the future, what with all the long-distance logistics!

But through the power of social media, we were able to keep in touch pretty well. And when her life was profoundly changed and truncated via the cancer diagnosis and the rapid realization that it wasn’t just a little problem that would be dealt with easily, she used social media to reach out to, stay in touch with, and embrace her friends all over the world.

She LIKED with a vengeance on Facebook. She ‘liked’ it when I posted a funny story, an anecdote about my kids, a cute cat photo, or a vent about life’s challenges. She chimed in on debates about social issues. She was lavish with her praise for friends and family, and shared her favourite causes, especially those involving animal rescue.

When Daryl posted in early April about the frustrations of finding soccer coaches for spring soccer she told him how wonderful he was and scolded the community, telling them that they should step up — this from her bedside in Arizona!

On my birthday, four days before she died, she posted:

"Happy birthday, loved one. You are an amazing woman!"

She also used Facebook as a way of sharing and recording her cancer journey — I won’t say battle, because she had to concede defeat pretty quickly and just devised tricks to keep the beast at bay for as long as possible. She was funny, and frank, and raw, and graphic.

Now it was her turn to say: “You just have to effin’ do it.” Except she didn’t say effin. She used the whole swear word.

Some people were lucky enough to visit her during her final year, and I was one of them. Karen and Mike and I spent a nice weekend in Phoenix together. Even though she was almost immobile, she arranged outings for Mike and I, and the three of us went out on the town to a comedy club where she immensely enjoyed shocking the crude comics who tried to start a spiel about our little threesome. “So you’re here with your ex and your friend,” said the comic. “What’s that all about?” The previous victim had fought the comedian off by saying “I’m researching a cure for cancer.” Karen then took great delight in making the comedian’s jaw drop by replying “I HAVE cancer.” Then he said, "Oh wow, but you're going to beat it right?" "No," she replied. "It's incurable." The room went silent. No picking on Karen after that answer! But they did giver her star treatment and a t-shirt!

Later on she was talking about perhaps going to a drive-in movie and asked Mike if he would take her. They had been separated for some time, so when she said, “we could make out!” he hesitated a moment. She then plaintively said with a grin, “C’mon Mike, I’m DYING!” Playing the cancer card to her advantage again!

We also spent some quiet contemplative time together that weekend. She lived another 12 months, but we knew we probably wouldn’t see each other again. We certainly kept in touch though.

She was funny and warm and compassionate to the end.

Shortly after Karen’s death, I posted this on Facebook: My 102-year-old friend is teaching me how to grow very old gracefully while remaining extremely engaged with loved ones and community and retaining a sense of humour, vivaciousness, and a lust for life. My dear and recently departed 52-year-old friend, Karen Heiber, taught me that it's possible to do the same while facing a shortened life span.

As I end my remembrance of her, I want to share her final Facebook post, one day before her death:

“Hugs and lots of love to my Facebook family. I cannot express enough how much all of your support has meant to me during this incredibly challenging and painful past year and half. Wishing you all love, happiness and health. Forever and ever.”

We are all better people for having known Karen.  We loved her, and we will miss her. Forever and ever.

Thank you