Right after the May 10 tornadoes, my group-insurance carrier posted a “hot line” offering grief counseling. About a week after the storm, I surprised myself by calling the number.
I guess I’d thought I had nothing to grieve about because my family had come through the storm relatively unscathed. In fact, we were very lucky — my mother’s house is less than a half-mile from where some of the victims died, but Mom wasn’t home when the tornado hit, and even though several trees landed on her house and she’ll probably need a new roof among other repairs, the house is still standing and no one was hurt.
Others were far less fortunate. As I told the counselor, I think I now understand the expression “survivor’s guilt.” Even in the moment when we were counting our blessings, it felt strangely selfish to do so when so many lost so much.
One of the people who died in the tornado was Kathy Rountree, the former Kathy Bilke. She was three years behind me in school, and though we didn’t know each other well, we had once worked on an art project together. When I learned that not only had Kathy perished, but also her husband, her young son, and her mother, I literally didn’t know how to feel. It was a shock, of course, but I hadn’t seen Kathy in many years, so I wasn’t sure I was really entitled to indulge a personal sense of loss. After all, who was I to Kathy? I had known her for such a brief period, and so long ago, that she probably wouldn’t even have remembered me. It sounds strange now, but because I didn’t know how to classify our relationship, it felt as if I shouldn’t intrude upon the more legitimate grief of her family and friends.
In the days following the devastation, I found myself thinking back to how Kathy and I made jokes about the mural we worked on at Seneca High School. The art teacher’s design — on which neither Kathy nor I had any input; we were just transposing it to a larger size — was highly stylized, and we thought some of the tribal elders looked a little strange.
One particular figure was seated facing away from the viewer, and his loincloth bisected his ample waist in such a way that it looked like he had an additional set of gluteal muscles. Kathy would say, “I’m telling you, that guy has two butts.” Her sense of humor was really dry, and I liked her a lot. I remember thinking that if it weren’t the end of the school year, and I weren’t going off to college, Kathy and I might have become good friends.
So, when I learned that Kathy had died, my brain sort of froze up, and continued to do so every time I tried to process that information. I began having symptoms of depression, which led me to call the grief counselor. Days later, I was driving down Seventh Street, thinking of the phrase, “That guy has two butts,” and a loud chuckle gave way to tears.
Within seconds I was sobbing. I wept for a friendship that never really got started. I cried for the girl that Kathy had been, and for the wife and mother she had become, and the friend she clearly was to many. It seemed impossible that her personal history had already reached its conclusion.
Of course, I now understand that I do have the right to grieve for Kathy, and for her husband and child that I never met, and for her mother. I am allowed to grieve for Paul Gallemore, with whom I probably never passed more than 50 words in my life, but who was the daddy to two good girls with whom I grew up. The world is poorer for their passing.
So here’s to you, Kathy Bilke Rountree, and that anatomically incorrect dude in the mural. You rocked, girl, and I’m glad I knew you for a few weeks one spring. Godspeed you and yours.
Marian Kelly is a comedian and motivational speaker. Her Web site is www.mariankelly.com. She lives in Joplin.
