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eve_primeMy friend Beki died of lung cancer yesterday. She was only diagnosed about a month ago, and just five days ago she was posting in her cancer journal about getting outside and enjoying her garden. Beki was 57.
Beki had the soul of a countercultural poet and lived a very full life. She was raised partly in Maine by an aunt and uncle, and I think partly in California, by a dad on the Ren Faire circuit. She was legally emancipated as a teenager and saw Bob Dylan perform in Greenwich Village before he was famous. When I met her, she was about 30 and lived in Berkeley with her husband and daughter, off a courtyard behind a whorehouse across from the Ashby BART station. She and Keith had been married for quite a while (in a redwood grove near Santa Cruz) and spent a lot of energy doing hippie-like things, with a fantasy twist, and which Beki always managed to make vibrant and meaningful. Keith mostly stayed home and cared for their young daughter, Jessica, as he didn't have a steady job (he'd managed a rock band, Sopwith Camel, for a while), and Beki came to work at a remainder book company just after I did.
We became great friends, though she was ten years my senior. We played D&D together, made dinners, hung out, shared books, and had a great time. Once she and I went to a Darkover Convention, which is one of my favorite memories. Another is when she took me to a pagan spring equinox observance on a windy Berkeley hillside overlooking the bay and ocean. She was restless, much more of an explorer than I was, with a great many life experiences that I couldn't really begin to fathom, but I think in general we respected our differences.
After she and Keith split (her decision, and a shock to me because they seemed so well suited), I still spent a lot of time with her, until she met and married Kevin, a firefighter, and moved out to Walnut Creek after the birth of their daughter, Mallory. Around this time, I was feeling frustrated because our friendship seemed to be becoming one-sided, and we drifted apart. Still, she was one of the most entrancing people I had ever met, and I loved her dearly.
Sixteen years later, thanks to the Internet, I found Jessica, now grown, and she reconnected me with Beki, married for a third time, and happily so. A year or two later, Beki and her husband moved to her dream cottage, surrounded by roses, in Dunsmuir, near Mount Shasta, and she settled in very happily, making a true home, investing her energies in permaculture and mastering her harp, and prospering emotionally. Finally, this Seeker seemed settled.
What a blow, then, to die at 57.
(Here's her LJ bio. Here's a short story/prose poem she wrote about Persephone and her mother. And here is a tribute from her friend![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rowanf.)
Beki had the soul of a countercultural poet and lived a very full life. She was raised partly in Maine by an aunt and uncle, and I think partly in California, by a dad on the Ren Faire circuit. She was legally emancipated as a teenager and saw Bob Dylan perform in Greenwich Village before he was famous. When I met her, she was about 30 and lived in Berkeley with her husband and daughter, off a courtyard behind a whorehouse across from the Ashby BART station. She and Keith had been married for quite a while (in a redwood grove near Santa Cruz) and spent a lot of energy doing hippie-like things, with a fantasy twist, and which Beki always managed to make vibrant and meaningful. Keith mostly stayed home and cared for their young daughter, Jessica, as he didn't have a steady job (he'd managed a rock band, Sopwith Camel, for a while), and Beki came to work at a remainder book company just after I did.
We became great friends, though she was ten years my senior. We played D&D together, made dinners, hung out, shared books, and had a great time. Once she and I went to a Darkover Convention, which is one of my favorite memories. Another is when she took me to a pagan spring equinox observance on a windy Berkeley hillside overlooking the bay and ocean. She was restless, much more of an explorer than I was, with a great many life experiences that I couldn't really begin to fathom, but I think in general we respected our differences.
After she and Keith split (her decision, and a shock to me because they seemed so well suited), I still spent a lot of time with her, until she met and married Kevin, a firefighter, and moved out to Walnut Creek after the birth of their daughter, Mallory. Around this time, I was feeling frustrated because our friendship seemed to be becoming one-sided, and we drifted apart. Still, she was one of the most entrancing people I had ever met, and I loved her dearly.
Sixteen years later, thanks to the Internet, I found Jessica, now grown, and she reconnected me with Beki, married for a third time, and happily so. A year or two later, Beki and her husband moved to her dream cottage, surrounded by roses, in Dunsmuir, near Mount Shasta, and she settled in very happily, making a true home, investing her energies in permaculture and mastering her harp, and prospering emotionally. Finally, this Seeker seemed settled.
What a blow, then, to die at 57.
(Here's her LJ bio. Here's a short story/prose poem she wrote about Persephone and her mother. And here is a tribute from her friend
rowanf.)