I flew to Los Angeles over the weekend to attend my sister-in-law Katie’s memorial. Even seeing it writing or saying it out loud still doesn’t quite compute for me. This was a trip I looked forward to (to be together with family and friends) and dreaded (because I didn’t want it to be true) in equal measure.

I was humbled and honored to be asked by my brother-in-law Craig to speak at the service–to tell a story about Katie. Craig and both my nephews (who I will refer to as “the boys” though they have adulted into fine young men) gave eloquent, moving and appropriately funny eulogies for Katie. She would have been so proud of them. I was, as I sat in the front row next to Laurie, a close friend of Katie’s who I met when Ken and I moved to LA.

The entire church was packed. In fact, they had to add chairs because attendance had overflowed the main room. It’s not surprising. Katie was a giver and a connector; a collector of friends and love in her life. So many wanted to be there to say goodbye and share a kind word or story.

I left my body when I approached the podium. I remember telling my story, but I couldn’t actually be right there in it. I had to have a wall up to protect me from blithering. (There’s nothing wrong with it, mind you. I just wanted to remain discernible.) Aside from Craig and the boys, Laurie and another friend, Gayle, I’d met back in the day told beautifully articulate stories about different facets of Katie. Like a finely cut diamond, she had many. Then later, toward the end, so many people got up to share loving stories about her. It was a testament to the lives she touched on the regular. It was just who she was.

I told the story of her coming to Chicago on a visit to see Ken when he was in home hospice. She surprised him with a tattoo she’d gotten of PadLo, a stuff animal made by their friend Renee. Ken loved PadLo, so when he saw the tattoo on Katie’s shoulder blade, he looked at me and said, “I want one.” And Katie played a pivotal role in making it happen. She and Ken had what she called “A Grand Day Out” (no, I wasn’t invited!), and they traversed the Windy City, including the tattoo shop where Ken had gotten a tattoo years before. Katie’s charm and determination wrangled a very in-demand tattoo artist into making time for Ken to get his very own PadLo tattoo. My closing line from the memorial:

I treasure that memory as our last great adventure together. And it’s all thanks to Katie—her grit and sparkle—and her plans for a grand day out with someone she loved.

After the service ended and people were scattered around the church talking in small groups, I found myself looking for her. I’d check to see where Craig was, then each of the boys, and Mama Jo (my mother-in-law), then I’d keep looking, knowing I wouldn’t see her, yet she was everywhere.

An odd thing about death is that it can’t take everything of a person from this world. Our physical being is only one (albeit rather important) aspect of our lives. But there is so much more, and this memorial did what it was supposed to do: it reminded me of all the ways Katie will remain with all of us who loved her.

In a homage to Katie, who was a librarian who loved encouraging people’s passion for reading, we were asked to place our stories into randomly selected books on the stage near the podium. When it was our turn to speak, we’d take our book from the shelf and walk to the podium. Though my post-it is gone, Shelby Van Pelt’s Remarkably Bright Creatures (the book almost in the center) was the book selected for me. Though no one in LA knew, I’d just read and loved this novel! Even more, I’d checked it out from my local library. It was a wink I felt deeply.

Her vibrancy endures.