These two hats symbolize the friendship between Temar K. Goodrich and me. The white crocheted one dates from the 1960s when Tema and I were college friends and roommates. She developed an interest in all things crafty and was teaching herself how to crochet. I love that hat. To this day, it's one of my favorites—warm, well-fitting, washable and durable.
Tema gave me the purple one in January, 2010, when I was visiting her in Brighton, Colorado. She had a stash of these hats she planned to give away. We were setting out for our walk on the levy behind her house and she had me choose a hat, since I didn't have a suitable one. I wore the hat on our two-mile walk that afternoon and also as we made our rounds of downtown Brighton. We had lunch and visited the library, where she was looking for books about "chemo brain." We also had our usual gabfest, talking about her battle with lymphoma, the latest diet or food or alternative medicine she was trying or her latest research and reading on lymphoma.
The hat went home with me and, like the white one, I love it. It, too, is warm, well-fitting, washable and durable. It's perfect for wearing in the woods.
Between the two hats, life happened. We both married architecture students who happened to be classmates at Kansas State. Tema and I had been roommates our sophomore year and when a group of us moved into an old house which had been turned into student apartments, she lived in the basement. I lived on the third floor with other roommates.
Because our husbands were in a five-year degree program, we stayed in Manhattan for another year after our graduations. We both went to graduate school; Tema for a Masters in Elementary Education and me for an MA in English. She and Bruce moved to Denver; David and I ended up in Tulsa. She and Bruce had a son, Jeremy.
Years, even decades, passed between our seeing each other. David and I stayed with her when we came to Denver for my sister Jolene's wedding. By that time, she and Bruce were divorced and she had met Gregg, who became her second husband for the next more than 30 years. Tema loved to drive to see friends and family. She'd call to tell us she was coming through Tulsa and we've have a reunion—an instant connection, as if we'd had lunch the day before.
She and Gregg moved to Texas for a brief time and I visited her there. The crocheted hat had turned into a full-fledged arts and crafts occupation. Tema was sewing, crocheting, knitting, quilting and turning odds and ends from garage sales into art. She had a booth at an antiques mall to sell her wares. One of my treasures is the antique handheld school bell she gave me.
We lost contact again. Then one day, a K-State alumni directory appeared in our mailbox. I looked up Tema, not expecting to find her listed. But she was. I called and again the instant connection. I began coming to Colorado fairly frequently for family events: weddings and reunions. Brighton is about ten minutes from the Denver International Airport, so she'd pick me up, we'd have a day together and she'd drive me to my sister's house.
The life that happened to Tema between the two hats included being the pedestrian in a pedestrian-car accident, which nearly killed her. She defied the doctors who said she'd never walk again. The blood transfusions gave her Hepatitis C and, about ten years ago, a routine blood test to check on the Hepatitis C revealed the lymphoma.
But Tema was not one to just let life happen. Not only did she fight the cancer with every weapon—conventional and non-conventional—that she could find, but she also continued with her sewing, knitting and crocheting. She loved sewing for babies and she found the perfect group—Warm Hearts, Warm Babies, which makes baby clothes and layettes and donates them to hospitals, shelters, homes—whoever might need them. Her basement workshop was stacked to the rafters with sewing equipment and supplies.
She used those supplies to make a third kind of hat—chemo hats. These were not ordinary chemo hats. The jester hats with bells that jingled were so much fun that she made several for other cancer patients who asked her about them. She also made beautifully decorated and intricately designed chemo hats. She was not about to let lymphoma interfere with her sense of humor or beauty.
In October, Tema picked me up at DIA. This time was different. She was so frail. She had recovered from pneumonia and told me that the oncologists had found a growth on her lungs. Instead of going to Brighton, we went to Denver West, near where my sister lives. We had lunch at Whole Foods, shopped for a baby shower for my niece—which Tema loved doing. We had our usual gabfest, but I could tell she was getting tired. My brother-in-law came to pick me up and we hugged our good-bys, promising regular phone calls.
In January, Gregg called to tell me that Tema was in the hospital. He was honest and forthright. "I'm calling you now so you won't be surprised when I have to call you later." Friday morning, January 21, the call came. Tema died at 11:40 p.m. January 20.
Her Life Remembrance January 28 in the First Presbyterian Church Fellowship Hall was filled with photos, memories, her beautiful creations and photos of creations she had donated through Warm Hearts, Warm Babies. Most importantly, it was filled with her family members: Gregg, her son Jeremy, her sister Dina, her brother, Kim; Jeremy's father, Bruce and his wife, with whom she had maintained an excellent relationship. Friends were there: her family doctor, the berry patch owner where Tema picked raspberries and blackberries and even maintained a row of raspberries for a while; other people who knew and loved Tema. We shared memories and laughter, tears and hugs.
The physical Tema has left—a reality that hit hard when I arrived at DIA and she wasn't there. But I have memories and those hats, which like Tema are warm, durable and as comfortable and well-fitting as our friendship.
