Goodbye My Golden Friend – Comments given (with shaking hands and breaks for tears) on June 14, 2024 in celebration of Tracey Whitstone Ratté (1964-2024)

Hiking the Dish with Tracey

I live in Palo Alto California and there is an area there that is called the Dish. It is a set of hills above Stanford’s campus with a humongous satellite dish on top, with a walking trail through it. The grasses of the hills are green during the winter but they dry out and turn gold in the summer.  Long graceful stretches of hills of a beautiful gold set against the blue sky of summer. It makes something squiggle inside me, looking at the blond grasses waving in the wind against a deep blue sky.

I recently drove by the hills and it made me remember Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s quote from The Little Prince.

“You see the wheat fields over there? I don’t eat bread. For me, wheat is of no use whatever. Wheat fields say nothing to me. Which is sad. But you have hair the color of gold. So it will be wonderful, once you’ve tamed me! The wheat, which is golden, will remind me of you. And I’ll love the sound of the wind in the wheat…”

And I thought of Tracey. And how now I love those grasses even more, because they remind me of her golden hair. The sound of the wind in the wheat is now Tracey for me. The gold grasses of the Dish are now Tracey for me.

Tracey and I haven’t lived near each other for over forty years. We had long stretches of time where we weren’t in contact. We weren’t intentionally out of contact, we just . . . were living life in different places.

Funny thing though, how often we were living in the same places at different times. We both started in Pennsylvania but then we both ended up living in North Carolina and the San Francisco bay area, always at different times. We are drawn to similar places, similar vibrations if I can get a little woo-woo here. Well, I’m going to get even more woo-woo here before it’s all said and done.

No matter how long we were out of contact with each other, if either of us called the other it was like no time had gone by at all. It turned out that we were on very similar spiritual paths, who could know? Butler girls considering Zen and getting our chakras aligned and laughing at ourselves while we tilted our heads sideways, like hmm maybe this actually fits?

Maybe we were the lucky ones, in Junior High the two non-Catholics at a Catholic school, allowed to not participate in religion classes (for how insanely strict those nuns were, it seems very progressive to allow students to attend Catholic school and be exempted from religion class!). Maybe that started an early questioning in both of us, an early permission to question religion. If you can be enrolled in a Catholic school and not be forced to learn the Catholic religion, maybe anything could be questioned. Maybe any belief could be respected. Seems very out of step with the place and times but that was the feeling. And so Tracey and I bonded over our non-Catholic status and both set out on a journey to find a spiritual authenticity.

And it turns out that Tracey and I both have a strong streak of California girl in us. She got there first and brought back reports from the front lines. Us Yinzers were talking about this last night after dinner, how Tracey brought California cool back to Butler every fall after spending the summer there with her father. We all got a little second hand brush with a beachy coolness.

When Tracey ended up living in Los Gatos, I came to visit her and was hooked. It was so beautiful I couldn’t believe people got to live there. And when it was time to find an internship as part of finishing my graduate degree I applied to one in Palo Alto, remembering the beauty of that area. I applied to that internship, that area, because Tracey had shown me how beautiful it was.

So Tracey is what brought me to California, which completely suits me. And that is what led me to meeting my husband. And that is what led me to living NEAR THE OCEAN. Something this western Pennsylvania girl could not fully even imagine is possible. Growing up in Western Pennsylvania the ocean was a very exotic thing. Maybe if your family saved up you could go to Ocean City NJ every year for a week. But to live near the ocean? Unbelievable. I still can’t get over it.  I can be at the ocean any day, any time I want. I’ve lived here for thirty years and it still amazes me to be near the ocean.

And I have Tracey to thank for that. Or maybe Bill. Yes, let’s take it back to Bill, Tracey’s dad. I don’t know how or why he ended up in Santa Cruz, but I thank him for it. Nick, maybe you can fill me in on how he chose that if he ever talked about it. And while you are at it, I’d love to hear the Cadillac story if you remember it. The one where your dad had Doug driving the Cadillac somewhere at 14 and he understandably scratched it up and then somehow a new one appeared??

And that makes me think about how intertwined our lives really kind of are. I’m sure we would all like to think we invented ourselves anew. Transcended our parents and everything we rejected about their generation. But now I get it, we don’t escape and it’s good we don’t. It seems a good time to honor the influences of our parents. My mother taught Tracey a lot about cooking. If I’m recalling correctly, Tracey’s mom was not super interested in cooking and Tracey was, so she learned a lot from my mom. And then Tracey’s dad was the butterfly wing flap that brought me to live in California. He came here, Tracey came here, I came here after Tracey. I’ve been here for 30 years. Did I mention I live near the ocean? Butler peeps, can you even believe it??

Back to the wooo-woo bit. When I found out Tracey passed over I went to work on writing something for Fletcher and Charlotte. And right as I finished, I looked out my window and saw a rainbow. And it lasted for almost a half an hour! I have seen a bunch of rainbows since Tracey passed and I have felt her presence in each of them. Double rainbows. Long lasting rainbows. Moving rainbows. I watched a rainbow move off the ocean in Half Moon Bay and travel clear inland and up the hill I was staying on. I am convinced that Tracey is communicating in rainbows.

 She’s pretty powerful, that Tracey. I feel that she’s around. Not all the time but sometimes. I imagine she’s got a lot she’s doing over there in the Everywhere. Obviously she’s relishing time with Preston. And Bill and Audrey and Doug and Pam and everyone else that went before her. But I also feel like, being Tracey, she immediately found some things she could improve on, even in heaven, and so she’s getting that shit done. Like she’s feng shui-ing heaven. I can’t imagine that Tracey would ever stop getting shit done. I kind of imagine she’s getting shit done for all of us now, like she doesn’t have to stop to rest, she’s just on it 24-7. But I could be wrong, maybe she’s resting. She got a lot done here on earth. Maybe she’s taking a break. That’s what I’d be doing. No, she’s definitely not taking a break, she’s definitely getting stuff done. In fact, I have the feeling she is circulating, right here, right now, making sure we all are having a good time at this event. Making sure we are all getting what we need.

And what I’d like to give to Tracey right now is this. We are good. And when we are not good we have each other because you brought us together. So, you can rest. You gave it all and it was more than enough. You were more than enough. you brought a joy and a delight that I think you were not able to fathom while you were in physical form. Know this, you were loved, fully and completely. You mattered, fully and completely. You are still here with us, fully and completely. We love you and that doesn’t have to end. Your presence in this world brought so much delight to so many people. With hands pressed together in prayer, we thank you and bid you rest and ease. Or improving heaven, whatever works for you.

Just two of the many rainbows I’ve seen since Tracey passed.

Addendum: 6/21/24 out on a bike ride in Baylands (along bottom of San Francisco Bay) and saw golden grasses everywhere that reminded me of Tracey. Here’s just two of them.

The Brightest Light in the Galaxy – In Memory of Tracey Whitstone Ratté

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.