Life changes in the instant.
The ordinary instant.
– Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking
Over nearly 19 years living in Whistler and working at Pique
and the Whistler Question I’ve had to deal, at a certain level, with death
numerous times — interviewing family and friends of people who have died,
writing stories, editing reporters’ stories.
Anyone who has lived in Whistler for any length of time has
known someone who died too young. It has always seemed remarkable to me how
many people this community has lost, in the mountains, on the highway…
While every one was a tragedy and a terrible loss for family
and friends, for the most part I was blissfully little affected. I sympathized,
I was saddened, but then I moved on. I’d come to accept that, unfortunately,
there are Whistler people and people visiting Whistler who die every year.
All that changed three weeks ago, on the side of a road in
New Zealand, when my wife, my partner, the publisher of Pique Newsmagazine,
Kathy Barnett, died. I am now trying to comprehend death on a new level.
Prior to this it was, curiously, the death of American
journalist David Halberstam last spring that seemed to have more impact on me
than many Whistlerites’ deaths. Kathy and I heard Halberstam speak in January
last year. I became a fan after reading one of his best-known books, The Best
and the Brightest. When he was killed in a midday car accident in a San
Francisco intersection the sudden, unexpected outcome of a normally safe
situation stunned me. A man who had covered the Vietnam War, the civil rights
movement in the ’50s and taken on governments and corporate institutions died
while being driven to an interview with a retired NFL quarterback. The
randomness just didn’t make sense.
Similarly, the death of Linda Carney several years ago, on a
golf course when a tree fell, was also the result of such a random act that it
didn’t seem possible.
Kathy’s death probably never will make sense. That three
people — two from Whistler and one from Seattle — should travel halfway around
the world to ride their bikes and that one of them happened to be riding on the
shoulder of a particular road at the same time as a driver decided to crowd
that shoulder… the odds seem very long.
I have a new appreciation for sharing. Time shared together,
shared experiences, things that went unstated but were understood. I haven’t
found a way to make up for that loss.
But I also have to thank all those who have shared their
time and thoughts with me — friends, families, the Whistler community and
people who worked with Kathy. You have all helped make it bearable.
Kathy loved life. She was, fundamentally, a creator and an
explorer. It was part of her ethos to always be looking ahead rather than
bemoaning the past. I don’t know if she was like that when she was a child, but
by the time she was 19 and had lost both her parents to cancer she was planning
her future. She didn’t forget her past but her focus was always on what was
ahead.
Most of our conversations were about the future — future
bike rides, improvements to be made at Pique, her 50
th
birthday in
August, local politics. In her notebook from the Australia-New Zealand trip
there are lists of things to do at the paper, to the house. There’s a new
recipe for a summer dessert.
She loved to work, and she loved to play: achievements and
rewards.
One of the achievements she was most proud of was Pique
Newsmagazine. Kathy worked several jobs in the first few years to keep the
paper, and the two of us, alive. Revenues were lower, and slower, than
expected. The weekly cycle included driving to the printers in Vancouver by 7
a.m. Thursday, picking up the paper from the printer sometime after midnight,
driving back to Whistler and then starting distribution Friday morning at 7 a.m..
We didn’t do it all alone — we’ve always been fortunate to have great support
from people in the community — but Kathy was the leader, the one who made sure
the business stayed afloat.
Amongst the many, many messages of support I’ve received in
the last couple of weeks was one that read in part: “I didn’t know Kathy well,
but there have been times when I’ve seriously wondered if I would still be in
Whistler if The Pique weren’t here; your and Kathy’s vision with The Pique have
made Whistler a much better place for all of us.”
My vision for the future is pretty confused right now, but
Pique Newsmagazine is a part of it. Through Darren Roberts, Andrew Mitchell and
the rest of the Pique staff, with the help of friends and supporters, we will
continue to create and explore. It was my partner’s mission.