Cathy Seipp: A Commenter's Requiem

I first came to know of Cathy Seipp through her writings at National Review Online (NRO). I’m not sure when I read her column for the first time, but it was likely sometime during 2004. Not long thereafter, I began reading her weblog and by the summer of 2005 I was a regular commenter. Cathy's World became something of a second home on the web – a place where I could interact with intelligent, interesting people and participate in vigorous (and often heated) debates – a sort of “Cheers” on the internet, if you will. Interestingly enough, Rob Long – one of the writers behind “Cheers” – was among Cathy’s close friends.

When Cathy went public with news of her terminal lung cancer during the fall of 2005 (she was initially diagnosed in 2002), I was shocked. But since the announcement, she proved to be an inspiration to all who knew her or knew of her. Never before have I known of anyone who faced terminal cancer with such a headstrong attitude – and did so for nearly five years!

However, Cathy’s writings on Hollywood, politics, raising her daughter Maia, and life in Southern California affected me at a much deeper level.

Allow me to explain. I’ll start from the very beginning: my father is adopted. He was born to a single, unwed mother at a Catholic hospital in Deer Lodge, Montana in 1939. Arrangements for his adoption were made in the months prior to his birth, and on the day he was born he was given to his adoptive parents – a young couple from the nearby town of Missoula.

After his adoptive mother passed away in 2002 (his adoptive father had died twenty years earlier), my father began searching for his birth mother – assuming she had long since passed away. That was not the case. By 2005, we knew she was alive (at 89 years of age) and living at a retirement home in Santa Barbara, California. I hadn’t been to Southern California since the early 1980s, when as a kid I visited Disneyland and Knott’s Berry Farm.

Cathy’s writings brought Southern California to life for me. When my father, mother, and I made the trip to visit my grandmother for the first time in August 2005, Cathy’s words were given form, as I came to experience the beautiful atmosphere of that part of the country for the first time in my adult life. Highlighting the trip, of course, was the joy of seeing my father reunited with his mother for the first time in sixty-six years.

I never met Cathy, but I feel as if I have lost a dear friend. Judging from the hundreds of comments on her blog expressing condolences, my sentiments are shared by many. Catherine Seipp lived a full, joyous life. As readers and commenters, we were fortunate to have participated in a small part of it. Hail and farewell.