Remembering Karen

Karen was very special to me and I will miss her very much. It´s such an understatement, of course. While sorrowing her death, my thoughts are also with you, her family, knowing how much she loved you and how much you will miss her. Being parents, Karen and I had much in common and she talked through the years about her children and grandchildren, as I did about mine.

Karen and I met in our first year at the Faculty of Music, U of T. and shared all the fun and adventure of those four intensive years. I enclose a picture of our graduation class where Karen is still in her gown, coffee cup in hand, together with all those good friends, and the exciting future still ahead of us.

The next year, when both of us were in Europe, I had a memorable visit with Karen in Bergamo, Italy. She was studying the Montessori method, and she took me to her classes, arranging with her different landladies for me to share her room for several weeks. Being Karen, she socialized brightly with one and all, but now in fluent Italian! I was so delighted and impressed. Nothing seemed impossible for Karen even then. In her tiny car full of us her excited girlfriends, she drove us (through a thick fog) to the opera in Milan, and on a following day to a Swiss ski resort. I still have a picture of that outing with her, dated March 1967.

Karen´s warm personality made having fun easy. You could be both silly and serious with her and she was generously open to all around her. She made people feel comfortable. For me her friendship was like a beacon of light in spite of life´s varying difficulties.
We had our first children the same year, and by letters and visits kept in touch over the distances. It was always easy to pick up our close contact after a pause. Good friendship is like that and Karen was the best of friends. I will miss her greatly.

To think that just last May Karen stayed with us in Toronto, after Ila´s, at my brother Carl´s house in Pickering. We talked and took walks, and one hot day went into a neighbour´s garden, where I took the picture of Karen in the yellow flowers, studying some unknown plants. We talked about her art work, and especially her paintings of plants and flowers. We often made food together in the evenings, laughed, talked seriously, and enjoyed what no one could imagine would be our last meeting ever. I will remember Karen with love and gratitude, for all the 55 years of enduring friendship that she offered me, and that I have so greatly enjoyed.

Karen Hjort (née Gerber)

Stockholm