Katherine Cassidy (Keim)
We believed.
Man, oh man, did we believe.
I feel certain the Keim girls were the last believers of our peers in Greenwich. I feel certain in my mom’s lifetime and 30 years in this town, she always chose to look for the magic, imploring us to follow suit, no matter what. In her final days in this world, listening to her favorite Tina Turner and Mic Jagger tunes, surrounded by my sister and high-school-sweetheart-turned-dedicated-husband Frank, I believe she still looked for the magic, even if she was peeking into the other side, and that she still Believed.
Notwithstanding Thanksgiving, all holidays were my mom’s thing. This woman was a nut-job for the holidays. The decorative selections were ample. You name the category of wears; my mom had a holiday representation of it. It wasn’t formal or staged, but it wasn’t gaudy or tasteless. My mom was chic, always able to spin the least expensive into the enchanting. She loved Halloween and Christmas best. She is perhaps remembered by some for her infamous Halloween parties on the outskirts of Belle Haven. This was a big night in our home where she dressed up like a witch every year, calling to kids from her megaphone, “Come here my little pretties…,” giving them handfuls of candy and inevitably talking to them about their costume choice, their school, their day. In later years, she hosted the neighborhood’s older kids letting them run amuck with toilet paper and shaving cream on our front lawn; she was always discovering ways to connect. It wasn’t forced. She just knew kids. She was one of those plugged-in kid people. She traversed the imaginary and the wisdom, she gave boundaries but allowed for independence, she could be whimsical but if you needed her to listen—she was present. She always had a “take” on the situation. She just got kids, and they loved her.
My mom, the “kid person,” did not prepare me for what was in store from my mom, “the Grammy.” She was the north star of my daughters’ lives. She was the devoted, brilliant, exciting, loving Grammy — ying to our structured, anxious, rule-following, parent-book-reading yang. My daughters worshiped her. She never just played make-believe with Este; she created whole Dolly worlds for them and lived in them with her. If Mirabel shared with her excitement about school or a friend, she would always ask her to repeat herself. Mirabel, less prone to the fanciful, would reply, “Grammy I just told you…” my mom responding, “I know, but I got so excited about it, so just say the part about Sally so and so again” — an intentional maneuver, drawing Mirabel out, centering her. How she shined consuming her Grammy with her stories, gaining confidence with her every word. My mom never revealed her techniques. She opened all the paint jars and play-doh containers. Crafts were limitless. Kits were not encouraged. There was no such thing as too many rounds of Candy Land. During that first pandemic spring we camped out biweekly near the deck of her condo, feeding apples to her (wild) squirrel Chubby, music from Alexa played at volume 4, my girls alternating performing in the “Grammy look what I can do” show and her genuinely cheering for them after every move. My sister and I loved this game when we were younger, too. She had a way of seeing you that made you feel remarkable. She held a small graduation ceremony and celebration for my daughters on her porch, with makeshift robes, hats, and diplomas. New Graduates from Mom’s Pandemic Home School and Surviving! (That was what the certificates read, followed by each of their names) She was fresh. She ran Camp Grammy that summer with uniformed unicorn skorts and tie-dye tops, “Camp Grammy” written with puff paint on the front. “No, we can’t….” just wasn’t a thing with Grammy, even in her excruciating physical discomfort. Grammy, she kind of showed me up, honestly. She was all the things to them, their song, their village. She topped her mom self as a grandmother. This past Halloween Mirabel was a third-generation witch followed by Este, a young Audrey Hepburn. How my mom delighted in these choices, how meaningful they will remain. It is through my mom’s deep relationships with my daughters, that I grew to understand her in new ways; I understood that her love was the magic, a struggle for me in my teens.
Being my mom’s baby girl was one thing… being my mom’s adolescent daughter posed unique trials in various stages over the years. My sister and I doubted her methodology, we could grow tired of her wisdom and ways. In adolescence, I saw her difference in what felt like everything. I pushed, wanting her to be like everybody else’s parents, not realizing that was her magic: not being like anyone else’s parents. It was her love of us that made us forget she was just one parent, one woman, with no supportive family background, no formal education, just one single mom managing the load of many. Magic. Her holiday passion didn’t derive out of pageantry, or a showiness. It was her way of creating for us memories and a community that could hold us all, tight.
One particularly challenging time was my fourth-grade year. My mom was working long hours at the Hyatt and transitioning to her new job at Jenny Craig. My sister and I had become pretty brazen about the whole Santa thing and perhaps even the whole “Greenwich” thing with our mother. Our friends thought we were babies and had done their civic duty imparting on us their parents’ disclosure: Santa was actually a lie. My mom cautioned me not to make a fool of myself believing everything little girls said on the playground. That going along with what everybody else said and did would make a fool of me for life. She was direct.
When my sister and I woke that Christmas Eve in the still darkness of the early morning; the lonely lamppost at the top of our driveway revealed the sparkle of new snow. Below the windows outside of my sister’s room was the overhang of our front porch roof, and it was there that we saw unmistakable footprints and sled tracks stretching diagonally across the roof. It’s foggy to me now– the conversations that followed, our screams that Santa had come to our house, and dragging our mom from her bed to “see” what we saw. But we never had a conversation about the existence of Santa ever again. She never spoke about overcoming her great fear of heights for us, dragging herself onto our roof, with a sled, in the snow so we Believed–never spoken of again. She never really spoke about being a single mom in Greenwich, how hard that is, what that meant. The gifts we give to the people we love— seem like the ones we speak the least about. They are rarely about the holidays or even celebrations but rather about making meaning out of our life. They are about the values and character lived, not explained. My mom was never consumed with who saw her doing any of this great mothering, she was never confused about doing things quietly for reasons she need not explain. My mom spent her life dedicating herself to giving us boundless love.
Katherine Cassidy (Keim) my mom, the eternally “best Grammy ever,” passed away on April 7th, 2022 in Fairfield, CT. She will be profoundly missed and lovingly remembered by her husband and high school sweetheart Frank Cassidy, daughters Tracy Keim Ward and husband Jon Ward of Rolling Hills, CA, Cortney Keim Aggarwal and husband Atul Aggarwal of Greenwich, Connecticut and by her granddaughters Mirabel and Este Aggarwal. Kay is also survived by her step daughters Barbara Cassidy and husband Christopher Koch of Boston, MA, Maura Mannetta and husband Michael of Saugus, MA and Sheila Eriksen and husband Brian of Wakefield, MA. We would like to thank the doctors, nurses and their support teams at Stamford Hospital and The Bennett Cancer Center in Stamford, Connecticut. They worked hard to add meaningful time to Kay’s life so she could be with her family and her grandchildren. In accordance with Kay’s wishes, her body has been donated to the Anatomical Gift Program at The Netter School of Medicine at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, CT. She also requested no public services being held. In remembrance of Kay’s life, for those who would like, please feel free to make a charitable donation to Bridgeport Rescue Mission or the Vietnam Veterans of America in her name.
