I will have other words about another passing but I am taking this moment to think about my friend, Kimberly Dull. She departed this world today. From the bits I’m reading here and there on her FB, it seems she had a short battle with cancer. And now she’s gone.
Kim was one of my favorites from our Hercules/Xena convention going days. It seems we didn’t actually meet in person until the Pasadena 2000 convention. But we were friends long before that, via our love of Kevin Smith, the New Zealand actor who played Ares on the aforementioned shows. We “met” at the message boards in a section called the Temple of Ares. We wrote stories of our personal characters interacting with the show’s characters, a sort of role-playing fun. Some of us had our particular favorites. Hers was Karl Urban then a bit later Patrick Fabian. (Mine was/is still Erik Thomson as well as William Gregory Lee and many others.) We were both delightfully crazy about our fellas but as the years went on, we found that we had other things we mutually loved.
I don’t remember Kim writing long stories like some of us did but I do remember the ditties she’d write for our birthdays. I remember the one she wrote for my character, Kiari. The details are fuzzy but I remember something about a cake, a kitchen counter, and Ares wishing his priestess a happy birthday in his own special way. Good times.
We corresponded via email for awhile but as time went on, those messages turned into comments on social media until it was just glimpses into each other lives with the occasional like or quick hello here and there. I loved when she shared her adventures on her page, her smile always at the ready and merriment lighting her eyes. I can tell from the messages on her FB now that she was so very loved and that she will be missed. You can add me to those voices.
It hurts knowing that her light is gone but even through these tears, I think of her with love and joy in my heart. When I think of Karl or the St. Louis Cardinals or the Niners or the Temple of Ares, she will be there too. I was so lucky to know her. I hold this truth close.
Journey well into the next, my friend. The memory of you will always make smile…
