Luky;
IT WAS with great sadness a number of years ago that I heard of the death of Mrs Kathleen Roberts.
I first met Kathleen through the letter page of a newspaper, where she often had something published.
What I noticed about those letters was her ability to understand a columnist's need of a personal involvement with the reader.
She knew we needed reaction and she gave it with a merry heart.
For example, there was a lonely hearts kind of column once.
Kathleen promptly advertised for a second husband (she was a widow and in her seventies).
A condition was stated; he must not suffer from claustrophobia because her flat was on the fifth floor.
Second thoughts
Another time a photograph was published of the editor and his staff.
Kathy wrote in immediately to say what a handsome editor we had.
"Wait," she wrote midway, "let me have another look at the photograph before continuing my letter."
You just couldn't help feeling warm-hearted.
On another occasion a man wrote in, complaining of the bad pronunciation of Hebrew words by the lectors in his parish.
This time Kathy was belligerent: "So Mr Jones feels that I don't pronounce these words properly."
Poor Mr Jones, I'm sure he meant nothing personal, but Kathleen's letter had a sequel.
Later the newpaper published a weekly lectors' pronunciation guide.
Warm
Once I mentioned Kathleen's letters in my column, and she wrote to me, care of the newspaper, a lovely warm letter.
Her sister was a nun in our local convent it emerged, and the next time she came to visit Sister they both called on me.
I arrived back from town at the appointed time, and saw that they had just arrived themselves.
They were admiring my son Joseph's ducks over the fence.
By the way, I found out only later that I was breaking a municipal by-law by keeping those ducks and eventually gave them to a farmer, but at that time they were still merrily creating havoc in my front yard.
Handsome head
I took to Kathy at once.
She was a little person with the most beautiful white-grey hair.
She told me to call her by her first name, which I wouldn't do because she was a lot older than I, but really the only old thing about Kathy was her age.
The best way to describe Kathy was to use the words in Anne of Green Gables;
"She belonged to the race that knew Joseph."
She and I spoke nineteen to the dozen, chiefly about the Christian faith, so dear to both our hearts.
Daily beads
She had been saying the rosary daily since she was at boarding school, she confided.
"You know why I started?
My mother had sent me some money, and I lost it.
So I promised to say the rosary daily for the rest of my life if I found it.
Just then I found it - in the place where I had put it.
It had been there all the time.
It was too late then to get out of my promise, so I'm still saying the rosary," said Kathy, affecting to sound a little disgruntled after all those years to think of the trick God had played on her to get her to pray the daily rosary.
That was the kind of thing I liked about her; she was good but not sickeningly so.
She did the right thing, but kept a twinkle in her eye.
She knew I had been to Greenhill convent, which closed its portals years ago after more than a century of dedicated teaching what the sisters called "young ladies".
From personal experience I know the nuns tried their utmost to make the most of us.
"I loved that Greenhill", Kathy mused.
"In the early twenties I met my husband on its tennis courts."
Kathy's son moved overseas, and for a time she thought she might go and join him and his family,
"but my roots have grown deeply here."
An asset
Personally I thought it would have been a great loss to South Africa were she to leave it, because she was to me the embodiment of all that is good in the sort of Christian I met when I first came to South Africa in the early fifties.
Their education in the faith had been received from missionaries who had given up home and family, their faith underlay all their actions and activities.
I don't get that feeling so much any longer but from Kathy one had it all the time.
Kathleen Roberts was an ardent newpaper fan for sixty years, and I for one pray for her intercession that our beautiful paper may last for at least another sixty.
With good friends like herself, we may even be able to welcome back those of our friends who
(a) considered us too political in our views, and those who
(b) felt we were not being political enough.
*Name has been changed
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