Katyah (Kathy) Gohr.
Earthy. Pragmatic. She sight read music with enviable ease. She played a mean guitar.
She possessed:
- A lovely light soprano.
- A love for baroque Jewish music.
- Puppies.
- Birds.
- A crystal collection.
- A sly sense of humor. (Who else could get folks to sing a song she entitled “If Pigs Could Fly” at shul?)
I met Katyah twenty years ago, at a retreat during our first year at seminary. It was Katyah who packed me into her truck when I had to be driven to an emergency room in the wilds of upstate New York, driving through snowy back roads that were barely visible in the dark. She joked, stayed calm, and made me feel safe.
We roomed together year after year when our cohort met for in-person study. Katyah was a loyal, patient friend. She became a beloved hospital chaplain. She was a delightful, lighthearted, accessible chazzan.
Katyah officiated my son’s marriage in 2016. She and Erik worked together on the ceremony. It contained surprises for everyone – including me.
I was sitting very near the table where various accoutrements for the ceremony were located. I glanced over at the wine glass that would be smashed underfoot at the close of the ceremony. It was standing upright, covered by the napkin we had brought to wrap it in.
Imagining shards of glass all over the floor and children sure to run about with enthusiasm after the ceremony, I supposed that everyone had simply forgotten to wrap the glass, I reached, as discretely as possible, to take the glass, wrap it up, and replace it on the table.
“No,” Erik said, though he was clearly amused. “Don’t. It’s all right.”
Katyah turned to see what I was doing, walked over, and took the glass out of my hand. She spoke quietly. “Not yet,” she said, her eyes crinkling.
A few minutes later, she spoke about Miryam, of her dance, of her connection with mayyim chayyim, the waters of life. She read a Rumi poem Erik had selected.
The beauty of the heart
is the lasting beauty:
its lips give to drink
of the water of life.
Truly it is the water,
that which pours,
and the one who drinks.
All three become one when
your talisman is shattered.
That oneness you can’t know
by reasoning.
Then she returned to the table, gave me one of her trademark grins, and with a gentle but perceptible flourish, lifted the napkin off the glass. It was filled with water.
The couple drank. Katyah brought the empty glass back to me with the napkin.
“Now,” she said. “Now you wrap it up.”
Laughter rippled through the room.
It is Katyah’s (Gregorian) birthday this Shabbat.
She died last summer when her lungs collapsed before she could get a transplant.
The day after her death, I watched one of the monarch caterpillars I had gathered from my summer milkweed open its wings. I filmed its tender unfolding as it emerged, its first flight.
Katyah, how I miss you.
