Kathy Sessions

My excuses for failing to submit an entry for the reunion book – and keep in touch with old friends – are wobbly pegs but maybe enough to hold an update.

Work life is quite fun. I'm the founding staffer and coordinator of a nonprofit network for funders and donors interested in tackling environmental threats to health and equity. I'd be pleased to talk with classmates who have or manage wealth and are interested in strategic philanthropy, especially in the areas of environment, health, and justice.

Home is increasingly peaceful after nearly a year of greenish renovation. When I started dating an engineer after my divorce, I had no idea how handy his tools, skills, and good humor would prove to be. The hardest but coolest project was installing marble mosaic floors in my kids' bedrooms, using salvaged (a.k.a. dumpster-dived) marble. Cement trumped the reunion book deadline last year.

At this stage of parenthood, it is bittersweet-clear that my kids' years at home are finite and flying. They're great, blooming people, wildly different and wickedly funny. Beth started high school this year, gaining on me in height and possibly already surpassing in political outrage. She is a vegetarian who sings in the car. Son Robbie started middle school this year. He's a math-loving, meat-eating geek who wears noise-canceling earphones in the car. The sense of time passing is heightened by time with my parents. My father is entering a middle stage of Alzheimer's, poignantly aware of what's slipping. My mother's gardening is impressive and a healthy outlet, but the disease burdens grow along with tomatoes. I try to spend more time with them, and it never feels like enough.


My kids and I call most of our gripes "poggles" (Problems Of a Good Life): too much work, not enough time, burned toast, rain on a bike day. My father says Alzheimer's is a poggle, allowing him to watch Law and Order reruns without remembering how they turned out. I'm not sure I'm that evolved yet. Most of the news doesn't look like poggles either, but it puts things in perspective. I'm lucky, and looking forward to seeing you in June.