I can’t believe I am writing two memorial posts in a row, but here it is.

I received notice this weekend that a dear friend, mentor, fellow writer and amazing human being Kartar Dhillon  passed away. I am so sad about this because I’ve had “go visit Kar” on my to-do list for the longest time, and I wrote to other friends and we kept meaning to make a concrete plan, but then everyone got very busy and we never got our act together and then we received this news.

I should have figured that she wasn’t well because every year, without fail, Kar would send me a detailed, thoughtful and handwritten letter in response to my mass-produced family holiday card. Except this year I didn’t hear back after the holidays and I made a resolution to go and visit. Except I didn’t.

I first met Kar in 1995, when we were both published in the anthology Growing Up Asian American. We met at a reading at the now-closed Clean Well Lighted Place for Books. Kar and I were on an authors’ panel with Maxine Hong Kingston, and both of us were all starstruck and nervous. We bonded in the back room and I invited her to join Rice Papers, a writing group for Asian American women.  She had just begun writing, in her 80s, and was glad to have the company. That group, which still meets sporadically, was so amazing. We had members ranging from 19 to 80something, and we went on to do our own group readings (at the now-closed – do you sense a pattern? – O’Hana Cultural Center), art galleries and bookstores. We published several of our own group anthologies, met together to cook and eat, laugh and write and read.  We had one memorable writing-and-eating retreat up at Lake Tahoe, and I remember Kar’s awesome homemade chapatis and green beans.

Kar was wise and humorous, infinitely intelligent, warm, creative, and fiercely dedicated to justice. Her children and grandchildren are activists, writers, filmmakers. Here is a piece that she wrote about her family’s beginnings in Astoria, Oregon. She was also a visual artist and had many sheafs of newsprint with charcoal portraits she’d made.

Even though I did not see her often in recent years, I will miss Kar a lot and will never forget what an inspiring and wonderful woman she was. Thank you for everything you were, Kar.