The death of writer Nora Ephron on Tuesday night made me realize that I've been thinking a lot about death recently. Not mine, but that of friends and people I respect and admire. Comes with age, I suppose, and I'm in that arena, though not too deeply, I hope. I suppose it also may be tied to some writing I'm doing on a new novel. A night-club fire and a tornado play prominent roles in the story. I'm a stickler for details (being a historian and former journalist) so I was learning about what fire and storms do to the human body and how damn frail and flimsy we humans are.
While I was doing the research and writing the scenes, however, I also learned a dear old friend of mine, Cathy Ball, was in home hospice care in Oklahoma, suffering from terminal cancer. I heard about this from another friend, and subsequently I wrote yet another friend for information. She told me Cathy had taken a turn for the worse two weeks ago. She told me the news was a shock, as Cathy had been able to visit my friend and her husband, mainly to see if her cat McGee was compatible with their cat. (The reason for cat-compatibility should be obvious, unfortunately.) Even then, Cathy's sister Barbie had to bring Cathy in a wheelchair. Apparently Barbie and her other siblings are taking turns stay with her to work on legal and related matters. My friend said that that when she has called Cathy, Cathy has sometimes been coherent and other times not. She attributed that to the medication Cathy has been on.
At that same time, I learned that Cathy's husband, Jim Brazell, had died of cancer and complications of diabetes in December 2011, and that Cathy had neglected her own health while nursing Jim. There's a picture of them together at Conestoga 10 at Tulsa in 2006. It's on the MidAmericon website, and I hope the photographer, Keith Stokes, will not mind my including it here.
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| Copyright 2008 Keith Stokes |
A larger version is at <http://www.midamericon.org/photoarchive/06cona10.htm>
I find it hard to use the past tense when writing about Cathy because she's not dead yet-at least not at 11 pm Eastern Time, as I write this. being a Monty Python fan, she no doubt would enjoy the irony of that. Still what she has done remains important, so the tense be damned. I'm an historian, and for me everything is the past and should be venerated.
Cathy was one of earliest members of NOSFA and, having discovered fandom first in Britain, was beloved by fandom on both sides of the Atlantic. Cathy was a tough, no-nonsense woman who spent four years in the US Air Force as an MP. She was a driving force in creating the early NOSFA fanzine "Red Dust," as well as her own "Under the Influence." She was a prime mover in NOSFA's early SF conventions one of the leaders in creating our earliest conventions, such as "Norman Conquest." Cathy was active in so many other areas of fandom, including chairing "RestCon." Also served her time working at a local used bookstore before going to B. Dalton's. After that chain closed, she found her own store, "Ball's Books," a great place to find all sorts of odd and interesting volumes. She later sold the store to concentrate on her own writing, but the store (with a different name) is still there as far as I know.
Cathy was also a writer. Her story "Bodybag" was one of three stories ("Going Gentle" and "Greenhouse" are the other two) she wrote that appeared in the now defunct Tomorrow SF magazine in the early 1990s. Her best-known piece, the satirical "Love's Prurient Interest" first appeared in a fanzine, but was reprinted in Shaggy B. E. M Stories, a limited edition anthology edited by Mike Resnick and published in conjunction with NOLACon in New Orleans. It was reprinted just last September in another Resnick anthology, Bug-Eyed Monsters and Bimbos: A Hilarious Collection of Parodies by Some of the Greatest Writers of Science Fiction, which you can find on Amazon and other bookstore sites.
More important, she was always supportive of the writing efforts of others, as many of her friends can confirm. She was especially supportive of Cary Osborne's (aka Devin Cary) early works such as Iroshi and The Winter Queen. and of Kim Pugh, another good friend of mine who died too young. I think she and both regretted that none of Kim's works saw the light of day in the greater world. His funeral I was the first and only time I'd ever seen her cry.
So I'm feeling sad. powerless, and depressed right now, since I now live 1,500 miles away. I really have only these words to offer her. Her illness has reminded me of other members of NOSFA who've died much too young. Jim Brazell, Kim Pugh, Ed Howard, Paul Cherry, and Nancy Peay, I promise to never forget you, and I won't forget Cathy, either. I can't forget her, and I know no one who knew her will either.
I can only say that I and many others love Cathy and care about her. The numbers of folk who entered fandom because of her are immeasurable, but the impact of her actions remains immense. In the end, I suppose, that's all any of us really have. But what a magnificent legacy that is. And with luck, future generations will discover her works and at least get a glimpse of what a great and special person she was.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to take some time with my own little pity-pot to grieve.
