Monday, March 19, 2007

Cathy Seipp

Cathy Seipp's daughter says she is losing her battle to cancer and has only a short time to live. I met her once, and briefly at the Pajamas Media kickoff in New York City. She had a glass of wine in her hand and a smile on her face. They say that Good Friday is the ultimate test of faith; but that is wrong. It is Easter Sunday. We have all of us seen paths tracked with tears, but none of us have seen an Empty Tomb. The most heartbreaking thing in life is not to know to sorrow but to see beauty and believe that we will never see anything so beautiful again. Her daughter Maya completes her mother's last blog post at Pajamas Media.

If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me.
If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light about me be night,”
even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is bright as the day,
for darkness is as light with you.
--Psalm 139

9 Comments:

Blogger enscout said...

I've always thought that it is the saddest of circumstances; that of having a child's precede the parents' death.

And the 139th Psalm has long been a favorite of mine. It is a great source of perspective and comfort.

3/19/2007 05:41:00 PM  
Blogger wretchardthecat said...

The daughter is posting for the mother; and as so often happens as we get older, the parent becomes the child.

3/19/2007 06:05:00 PM  
Blogger enscout said...

W:
That would have been obvious had I read the piece more closely.
Sorry for the error.
Great work, as usual.

3/19/2007 06:13:00 PM  
Blogger wretchardthecat said...

I decided to go to the parish church tonight to light a votive candle without knowing whether the door would be open. It turned out it was. But I was moderately surprised to see a man tending the garden by night. He was a very strong young man, wearing of all things, a cammy baseball cap and shirt. It struck me that there was someone else abroad that night with some private vow and let it pass.

There was no one in the church and the red sanctuary lamp burned in the semi-dark. But I lit the votive candles and asked that Cathy and Maya be reunited in God's love. When I left the gardener was no longer there.

3/20/2007 02:00:00 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...

I met Cathy that night too. At the time I didn't know she had been battling lung cancer for years. (She mentioned it in several columns but you could have missed them if you weren't keeping track of her output.)

I wish we had gotten to talk a bit longer that evening, I wish I had made it out to LA for a visit and maybe wangled an invite to one of those blogger journalist parties.

3/20/2007 02:13:00 AM  
Blogger John J. Coupal said...

Cathy was a frequent guest on the old Dennis Miller Show that appeared on CNBC TV until 2005.

She had very insightful viewpoints and was a good contributor to the program.

3/20/2007 07:49:00 AM  
Blogger Baillie said...

And George Herbert echoes the Psalm:

"Whether I fly with angels, fall with dust,
Thy hands made both, and I am there;
Thy power and love, my love and trust,
Make one place ev'rywhere."

3/20/2007 08:42:00 AM  
Blogger Starko said...

Wretchard,

What keeps me coming back to read you is the fact that you never lose sight of the big picture.

I mean this on a "tactical" level- that is, in how you view and interpret events, but also on a "heart" level- you always keep in mind that regardless of the immediate stakes, there is a picture so big that it stretches out beyond what we'll ever understand in this life.

3/20/2007 06:50:00 PM  
Blogger Evanston2 said...

I encourage all MilBlog readers to check out Cathy's writing for a "change of pace." If you go to NRO and search their archives for Cathy Seipp, you'll see well-written observations on being a formerly liberal journalist in L.A.
As an aside, I'm not sure she's changed as much as a typical "neocon" but more that the liberals went Left and she (and many others) found themselves in the middle, now "conservative" camp.

You wouldn't know about her health troubles except from her blog. I checked it many times in recent months but never left a note. It's interesting to read, too, particularly the interaction with her daughter and various friends. And her troubles with insurance and hospitals.

Thank you, Wretchard, for mentioning this to your readers.

3/21/2007 01:46:00 PM  

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