There are so many things I don’t know. For one, why someone with such radiance and love as my friend Tracey Whitstone Ratté would not make it to at least her 90’s, if not beyond. She passed away earlier this month from cancer at age 59. Fifty nine. The world needs people like her to stick around a good long time. And don’t get me started on all those assholes who are still alive. I don’t get it. So I’m going to shrink it down to some things I do know.
Tracey had a stunning ability for design. She took a couple swaths of material and a discarded stone pillar and made an apartment look like it belonged in Paris.
Tracy had effortless style. She was an influencer before there was such a thing. She bought a pair of slouchy boots in high school that I thought were the coolest ever. I bought my own pair (a different color so as not to be a complete copy-cat) and wore them for several years, despite buying them a size too small (that’s all they had left, and I had to have them). I never quite pulled the looks off like her (since I was, after all, copying a one of a kind) and I’m pretty sure those boots are responsible for my bunions but it was a small price to pay to approximate Tracey’s coolness.
Tracey could make any mundane thing a giggle-fest. Like cruising Main Street in Butler in a 1980’s Cutlass Supreme looking for action when no action was to be had. Still fun. Or when I came to NC for Thanksgiving with my family a couple of years ago and we went to Homegoods to find placemats to match the fabulous new table runner she had bought for her Thanksgiving dinner. We ended up on our knees digging through the wildly disorganized piles on the very back of the bottom shelves, laughing so hard that two different sets of women came around the corner to find us. One of them longingly said ‘I want what you guys are having.’ That was Tracey, making anything so fun it was like she was carbonated.
Tracey was an innovator. As a holistic nutritionist she realized people needed a healthy substitute for the meal supplement products on the market (which contain all sorts of not so healthy additives etc) and she created SMOOP, full of all the nutrients and none of the additives. Smoothie-soup! And of course it is unbelievably tasty.
Tracey had an unflinching ability to face hard things. To wade right in, get the therapy, consider the options, do the hard work on herself and then on relationships with others. Tracey was brave. I originally wrote ‘fearless’ but that isn’t correct. She had fears, we all do. She, unlike many people, marched straight towards them.
This bravery is part of what made her a true friend. She wasn’t scared of anything about me, was accepting and supportive, an alchemist turning pain to wisdom and laughter. When we were together or talked on the phone, I didn’t feel like her attention was anywhere but with me. I felt seen and known by Tracey, and isn’t that what we are all looking for in relationships? To be seen, and known and loved for all the parts of you? She was the best at that. Her presence has always been a gift.
By pure Divine intervention I ended up at Tracey’s bedside in what turned out to be the last week of her life. I’ve known her since childhood, she helped get me through the particularly rocky teen years. We were in each other’s weddings. We had hit the empty nest together. And here we were in what seemed pretty clear was the end.
As we sat together, her body so weakened, her spirit still the most ethereal of anyone I’ve seen on this earth, we talked about silly stuff and meaningful stuff and said the things you don’t want to left unsaid. It was all the feelings, turned up to 100.
You know what we didn’t do? We didn’t gossip. We didn’t have time for that kind of bullshit. We didn’t complain about taxes or politics. We reminisced and we said ‘I love you’ and we soaked in each other’s presence.
I commented on how remarkable the friends and family she had around her were. Round the clock love and attention to her every possible need. Coconut oil for her lips, a diffuser for humidity and good smells, someone always present to hold her hand or get her a drink of water.
And Tracey said she didn’t quite understand it.
She wasn’t being falsely humble. She was kind of bewildered that people had rallied so intensely and lovingly on her behalf. I’ve been thinking about that a lot – how can someone who lights up the world not know she lights up the world?
I look around at my family and friends and see how much each one brings to me, to the world. Could they not know? I look at myself (cringe, feels so egotistical to even try), might I be a light too?
Maybe it is time for us all to appreciate our own light. Take a little satisfaction in what we bring to this world. It won’t turn you into a narcissist (if you were going to be one you are one already).
Would that be such an awful thing? To appreciate that someone felt cared about or seen by you?
I’m going to believe that Tracey left this world realizing that she lit up the lives of many people, and that the reverberations of her light will be felt for decades. In her honor I’m going to tell more people what a light they are to me and I’m going to consider that I might be a little bit of a light for others. Because part of the light that shines through me is from Tracey.
Tracey is worth every tear I am shedding, every one. I’m not done crying and I’m certainly not done with our friendship, but I am taking this moment in time to say to her, with my ragged, blown open heart, thank you for being my friend. It’s been a better life because of you.
lynn rankin-esquer 