Katya Lesher
February 1, 1963 – September 7, 2021

On September 7, my beloved friend Katya made the leap from her body, wracked with cancer, to the great vast field of love that holds us all. I am thankful she is free of the physical suffering she endured for the last phase of her journey with cancer (and she would always call it a “journey,” never a “battle”) but oh how I miss her embodied presence on this earth that she loved so much. Rest in peace and power, dear Katya.

Katya came into my life almost exactly eight years ago, a relatively short time in a lifetime, but it felt like we had known each other forever. In these eight years, this was one of the most intimate friendships I’ve ever had. Katya had a gift for holding space for people to hear their own hearts. She did it in an incredibly powerful and gentle way, all at the same time. She also had a gift of creativity, and her haikus, photos, and art pieces will continue to grace the lives of so many of us. This is not the end of that, and you’ll hear more as I’ve been entrusted with some of her writings and works-in-progress. So honored.

We had a wonderful co-creative relationship. With Katya I put together beautiful transformative retreats and experiences that some of you have shared in: Waking Up to Your Life, Re-Connection and Renewals retreats in New Mexico and New Hampshire, and workshops to support chaplains and healthcare workers to explore contemplative practices. Getting to create, design, and facilitate with Katya was one of the great joys of my life. Without a doubt we would have done much more if we had more time.

So many people loved Katya and there are so many stories of the way she changed our lives with her fierce ability to be with death and dying, and her commitment to the Earth. 

One of the last assignments that Katya got in this lifetime was to shepherd me through the period of time where both my mom and dad got COVID and then died two weeks apart from each other this past January. Even as my parents were clearly suffering and my own life was turning upside down, I could feel the strength, love, and trust that Katya carried with her to help hold space for me during that time. 

Her capacity to do so was informed by her years of experience as a hospice social worker but even more profoundly, by her life’s experience of being profoundly touched by death. Over a number of years, she had lost her father, her brother, and her brother-in-law to cancer. Last year her adopted sister died of COVID. And earlier in her life she had her own journey with ovarian cancer. All these experiences gave Katya a deep understanding of what it means to die, but more importantly what it means to live.

As one friend wrote on her CaringBridge page recently, “Never have I known someone who could be so very joyful and at the same time be able to find, feel and express such a deep well of pain and sensitivity.”

Less than three weeks after my mom died, Katya received her own diagnosis of stage 4 terminal cancer which had metastasized to her brain. She had gone to an emergency department in Santa Fe one morning in February because symptoms of what she thought were ocular migraines were getting much worse. Scans at the ER showed multiple lesions in her brain and she was transported that night to an oncology unit in Albuquerque.

The primary source of the cancer was never definitively identified, but the prognosis was clear – it was untreatable. Characteristic of the courage with which she lived her life, Katya made a conscious choice to not pursue treatment but rather to embrace however many days she had left and dedicate them to love. She wrote about that experience here. As it turned out, she had nearly seven months left and she lived them to the fullest. 

With the help of a very generous community of friends, Katya was able to take a medically supported flight to return to her birthplace, Rochester, NY, on March 1 so that she could be closer to her dear sister, Karen. I was blessed to be able to make four trips to see her in Rochester over these past months.

The last night I spent with Katya, August 27, she wanted to sit at her art table. Even as her vision and cognitive capacities were very impaired by that point, she worked with materials that we had collected from our evening walk – leaves and feathers. Always creating beauty from the depths of suffering.

I miss Katya so deeply. This relationship goes on forever even as the physical form changes, I know that, but right now, so many tears. She should have had more time on this earth. And now she is becoming an ancestor to support us all. 

Thank you for being my friend, dear one. To be continued…

To learn more about Katya’s life and art, visit her website Pausing Turtle, which continues as her legacy.