Kimm, my best friend from college, recently died in a car accident. I just returned from Texas where I was one of eight people to speak during her funeral service. At the visitation the night before and during the service itself, Kimm’s middle school best friend and I, her college best friend, were mentioned innumerable times. We were introduced to many people who “knew” us because Kimm had talked about us all the time. We were most often introduced as her best friends from Illinois. So, before I read what I had written, I introduced myself as the “famous Angie from Illinois.” People smiled and laughed, and then I began reading with a few tears and some spontaneous changes thrown in ...
Our differences
When We Met
Kimm and I met at Blackburn College when we were both 18-year-olds and recently graduated from Illinois high schools – she from Girard and I from Princeton. She was not far from home while I was several hours away from mine. We were in the same college algebra class and French class, and we lived in the same dorm, but we were not yet roommates our freshman year. Other than these similarities, we were really nothing alike.
She was determined, motivated, confident and loud compared to me, who was irresolute, anxious, insecure and extremely shy. She wanted to be seen (and was), and I wanted to disappear from the face of this earth.
However, she recently explained that she thought I was interesting – perhaps it was the fact that she thought I never washed my panty hose because she thought the mole on the top of my right foot was dirt and she saw it every day. Despite my seemingly filthy habits, we became friends. Young, naïve me learned a lot about life from bold, street (and book) smart Kimm. I cannot even fathom who I would be today if I had not met her in college.
Our adventures
Early On
Kimm and I have had plenty of adventures together throughout the past 44 years. Once while we were still at Blackburn, my vehicle had a flat tire in the middle of nowhere. She was so frustrated with me because I knew nothing about tires, changing tires, basically, not even knowing spare tires existed – and apparently my vehicle didn’t have one. We were stranded on a dark country road in the middle of the night and we didn’t have cell phones. I don’t remember how far we walked or how we got back to campus, but that flat tire experience didn’t cause Kimm to dump me as a friend. She probably thought I needed more help and she shouldn’t give up on me.
Another time, she and I drove my mom’s 1963 Thunderbird from Illinois to Texas to see Kimm’s family during Christmas break. That Thunderbird was a sweet dusty rose color, and the gas gauge and the heater didn’t work too well. The front passenger sweated profusely and the driver shivered from the cold. An additional challenge for our trip was we needed to find Texaco stations to fill up the gas tank because we were using my mom’s Texaco credit card – as college students we didn’t really have any money of our own. (I added “Thanks, Mom” as I looked up to heaven.) We made it to Texas and back, and we were still friends at the end of that adventure, too.
Remaining friends
Life's Events
At that point in my life, I reacted to “things happening” by wanting to curl up and lie on the couch rather than face whatever was in front of us, but Kimm would take everything in stride ready to prove to everyone that she deserved to be where she was, doing what she wanted. Her childhood forged her determination and motivation. On the other hand, mine was softer, gentler, sweeter and made me, obviously, into a very different person. Yet, we remained friends through all of life’s minor and major events: marriages, births and parenting for her, divorces, work drama, and deaths.
In the beginning of our friendship, she offered me a view on life that helped me grow stronger and more confident because she believed in me just like my family did. When she left Blackburn to move to Texas, we kept in touch. I visited her several times – I was there when she and Stephen brought Dustin home from the hospital, and, by chance, I was there when Dustin left for boot camp. One time in November, she brought Dustin and Tori to my house in Illinois. We (meaning I) drove to Chicago so the kids had a chance to see it first-hand. We decided to walk from one of the lake-front museums to a place over there. Neither one of us was apparently good at judging distances because our walk ended up a very, very, very long and cold walk. I don’t even remember how we got back to my car.
Teaching the ands
Beyond the Classroom
From our very first adventures with flat tires and running out of gas to our last adventure in December of 2023 where we stayed in a haunted hotel in Eureka Springs, Kimm was always pushing me out of my comfort zone – and she’s still doing it ... My 18-year-old self would have never done this in a gazillion years, but my 62-year-old self? ... is standing here because of how Kimm shaped my life and how she filled it with adventurous experiences.
From the very beginning, I knew Kimm’s life was full of struggles, yet she lived passionately and whole-heartedly. Death chased her relentlessly, and she ran from it for most of the time I have known her, but then she was forced to face it when Dustin died in 2021. After that, she struggled to find that determination and motivation that had fueled her her whole life.
Grief affects different people in different ways, and life is filled with ands. Kimm was intelligent and she burned everything she cooked. Kimm was serious about teaching and she had a whole bunch of fun while doing it. If there was anyone who showed me the ands of life, it was Kimm, who experienced struggles and wonder while supporting her students and her family. In the end, Kimm was still bereft, and she also still loved her people.