By Kara Migliorelli Seiler
I am struggling with how to live without the hats.
Crocheted blackberry pie hats with lattice crust for us “pie girls.” The pink cowboy hat, with silver fringe and glued-on gemstones. Tall, 1960s bouffant wigs with bell-ornaments and tacky bows. Mermaid tiaras at the birthday party.
A designer shower cap that would keep your hair perfectly intact while exercising. (She made me road-test that gold cap around the park. I didn’t have the heart to tell her it slipped to the side as I jogged… or that, a bit self-conscious, I took it off half-way through.)
Not just hats. Cooking utensils stamped with the Eiffel Tower. A pizza-slice purse. Books with purebred cats posing in frosted-blue wigs. The cheerful Kara’s Krew t-shirts I spotted in the crowd during my first half-marathon. The “Oscar de la Runner” tank top she gave me, along with the “Life is a Cabernet” linen wine bag.
I met Donna 13 years ago. My first corporate job. She was part-time, well-dressed, and in her 50s with no kids. I was 20 years younger, and I soaked up everything about her.
She told my boss after our first project together: “I like Kara. She has that sixth sense of what I need.”
Those lunch hours we’d spend speed-walking the maze of underground tunnels that connected downtown offices and restaurants. Our “venting sessions.” Her put-together blazer, full make-up, and sparkly sneakers that “couldn’t look like regular sneakers.” No matter how many times we walked those tunnels, we seemed to find ourselves lost or at a dead-end. I’d study the color-coded map. She’d laugh, her eyes sparkling: “I have no idea where we are!”
The time she couldn’t figure out how to turn on the windshield wipers in her husband’s car when we got trapped in a downpour outside the outlet mall. She hit the horn, the trunk, the hazards, nearly peeing we laughed so hard. Soon after, she began calling me “The Navigator.” There was also “Schnitzel” after a disappointing German meal; “KaraPie” after the movie Waitress; and Doll, Babe, Sweetie… just because.
On the day she packed up her desk to move away to become a full-time entrepreneur, she told me: “Remember, Seabiscuit, keep the blinders on.”
After that, there was the wide-brimmed witch hat on the Halloween we traveled to visit one of her close male friends. A not-so-subtle match-making trip. “No pressure, but how fun would that be? We’d get to see each other all the time!”
But the match-making failed. And I didn’t see her all the time.
When Donna called a year ago to tell me about the cancer, she was afraid but upbeat. A friend and I eagerly mailed care packages… a Wonder Woman t-shirt, ginger candies… and a floppy white chef hat with a note tucked inside: “not-going-to-let-cancerwin-pie.”
But I think, all along, Donna had her eyes set on the Kentucky Derby hat. I imagined it would be the biggest and most outrageously amazing hat of all. By late winter, the cancer had metastasized to her brain, and I believed that this hat could keep the cancer contained. Just as the magical pizza ballcaps and colorful pixie wigs – gifts from family and friends – had shielded her from the results of the chemo treatments.
We made plans to visit. I texted her to confirm. I studied her reply: “No, babe. I wish I could see you guys this weekend.” I panicked. I wanted to ask about the derby hat.
I texted. I emailed. I even mailed her an old photo of us from that half-marathon. I looked silly in my plain running cap. I bet she’d agree. But I never heard back.
I miss her. There are so many hats I want to tell her about.
I have this feeling there may not be a derby hat. And she’s not going to let me see her without it.