By Any Measure

Recently I had lunch with a friend and the conversation turned to K.B.’s death. This friend had only met K.B. once, briefly, so what she knows of her comes from me. Because we have known each other quite a long time, she was able to detect that K.B.’s death is something with which I am still struggling. We ended up talking for quite a long time about what it means to lose a very close friend and what kind of an impact that has on one’s life.

I mentioned that K.B. was such a good person; she was remarkable for her ability to concentrate on the positive, no matter how dire the situation seemed. She was tremendously openhearted, embracing in friendship people with all sorts of interests and temperaments, of all ages and backgrounds. The "Instant Karma" story from her own blog showed how her first (and second, and third…) impulse was always towards kindness, no matter how unkind someone might be towards her. I feel so lucky to have been the beneficiary of that loving kindness more times than I can tell.

The friend to whom I was telling all this responded by saying that K.B. would have seen those qualities in me, that I had that same sort of goodness in me and that was likely a reason why K.B. and I bonded. I instantly, firmly had to correct her.

This is not false modesty. I know, through rigorous self-examination, that K.B. was a better person than me. I can only hope to aspire to be the cheerful, generous, thoughtful person she was, a person who always gave people the benefit of the doubt and wondered how their circumstances might motivate bad behaviour. At the time of the events described in the “Instant Karma” story, my take on the woman who insulted K.B. and swore at her was, “This woman is off her meds.” If I had been the recipient of her abuse, I doubt I would have been able to restrain myself from responding with a few choice words of my own. I certainly wouldn’t have gone back to offer her assistance a second time. I likely would have written her off.

By any measure, K.B. was good in a way that I am still working towards, and on many days feel very far from attaining. There were numerous occasions before she died when I said to B., “If only I had an ounce of the goodness K.B. has, I would be doing very well.”

I don’t mean to say that K.B. was a saint. No, there were people she disliked, and there were a couple of occasions when I thought her assessment of someone was not accurate. But did I ever see her be mean-spirited, or harsh, or sullen, or resentful? Never. As someone who struggles daily with tendencies towards being irritable, judgmental, and impatient, I am aware that I am lucky to have had her in my life to serve as a model for how to treat people, whoever they might be.