Nine years ago, I came home from work to find my answering machine filled up with messages. Some were from people I hadn’t heard from in a long time saying things like, “Tara. Call me. It’s about Katrina.”

Since Katrina and I are both in recovery from addiction, my first thought was, “please… someone just tell me that she relapsed.” In my gut I knew that the truth was far worse and it was soon confirmed. She had suffered an aneurism and was now laying brain dead in a Staten Island hospital.

Her name was Katrina Devita. She was 42 years old when she died suddenly. More than a friend, she was a mentor.

I met her when I was 25 years old, deeply caught in the hopelessness and pain of active addiction. She had about 5 years clean and I was unsuccessfully struggling to put 24 hours in a row without using drugs together. She had had her own struggles, having once been homeless on the streets of Chico CA, at the time that we met she was studying to be a nurse while raising two kids all by herself.

I didn’t like her at first. She was nosy, bossy and had a lot of strong opinions. Come to think of it, we had a lot in common.

My 25-year-old self was filled with sadness, anger and self-destruction. I didn’t want to be in pain, but I didn’t know how not to be in pain. My attitude at the time was, “Life sucks. Convince me that I want to live.” I was a lot of work.

Perhaps because she saw herself in me, Katrina stepped up and became my Guardian angel. Never in my life had someone understood me so deeply. I remember talking to her on the phone for the first time and wondering if she was psychic. I didn’t understand how she could know me so well. Now I know that she understood my pain. I was not so unique as I thought. She had been where I was and knew that path. She was further down the path and had been fortunate enough to take road of recovery when she came to the fork in the road. Now she was holding a lamp and trying to guide me in that direction.

I didn’t go too willingly but she never gave up. For two years I struggled but Katrina never abandoned me. She spoke to me endlessly on the phone, she sewed my ripped clothes, she fed me and let me crash on her couch when no one else would have me. I became her shadow and all the while she spoke to me about the way life could be if I stopped hurting myself.

What ensued was an EXTREMELY long growth process and the direction wasn’t always “up!”

As we got to know each other more, our conversations naturally got deeper and more personal. I allowed myself to trust her – something I had stopped doing out of necessity and survival.

It is often said that religion is for people who are afraid of Hell and spirituality is for those who have already been there. This was the case with Katrina. I remember telling her that I didn’t think I would ever get clean because I didn’t believe in God.

“Native Americans believe that when we throw a rock across a river, we change the course of the river.”

She replied.

That statement stopped my brain in its tracks. I had a moment of clarity where in a flash I understood that everything was cause and effect. I saw that all the actions I take, however small, have the power to change everything. It is my choice as the whether that change is for the bad or for the good. If I make bad causes, I get bad effects. If I make good causes, I get good effects. EVERYTHING mattered. Everything had consequences – however small and inconsequential it may appear, EVERYTHING is important.

That was such a profound moment for me. Any sense of spirituality that I have today can be traced back to that conversation in the kitchen and that single statement.

There were so many moments like that – so many teaching moments and Katrina always had an answer. When I complained that no one called on me during a meeting to speak, she replied, “I guess you were meant to listen then.”

When I complained that I didn’t “get” anything out of that meeting, she came back with “what did you give to the meeting? Did you give anything?”

This was certainly a new perspective! She was challenging me to see things differently – to change my “filter” and grow.

Katrina Devita saved my life. She kept me alive and encouraged me long enough for me to see that I needed to check myself into an in-patient rehab. When that day came, she was the one who drove me there. My mother and father had no understanding about addiction and recovery. Katrina even set up a meeting with my parents to explain. She told them about her life and her struggles, as a way to illustrate that recovery is possible. She went well above the call of duty.

She was also the hardest working person I ever met. She was ALWAYS working on something – painting or cleaning people’s houses to make extra money while she was studying to be a nurse. I would come along with her on those jobs mostly because I needed a babysitter. When I was in early recovery, left to my own devices I didn’t trust myself to stay clean. Using drugs was like being under a spell. If I thought about it for more than a second, I would find myself in the Lower East Side like there was a ring through my nose pulling me to the “spot.”

Now, when I have doubts and think I can’t do something, I think of Katrina. With everything she had to juggle, including two kids, in her 30’s she turned her life around and became a nurse. She then bought a house so, she said, her kids would always have a place that was theirs to come home to.

It seems so unfair how once she had worked so hard and truly gotten her life back together she died so suddenly.

Her death, like her life, affected so many people; first for the obvious reason that none of us know how long we have. That being the case, we have the responsibility to love and respect each other right now.

We had her memorial service at the Unitarian Church and it was packed beyond capacity. People were standing around the outside of the church watching through the windows and there was a line to get in that went down the block. All for someone who had once been a homeless drug addict, I thought! Here was another lesson – a true testament of someone who turned her life around and made a contribution to the world. She learned to value herself and turned her pain into assets that she used to help other people. I looked around at the faces in the church and saw people of all colors and persuasions. Here were her family, her friends and even her patients. A friend played and sang “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” her family spoke and then people got up and told stories. It was the best sendoff I could have imagined.

But what if she had died while she was out there on the streets? The funeral would have been a very different service.
I think of this sometimes when I feel like giving up. The end of the story is not yet written. Who knows where my life will be if I just don’t give up! Change is possible.
We will all meet our maker one day and we can’t take anything with us, but we certainly can leave something behind. When I have setbacks, I have to pick myself up, dust myself off, learn from the setbacks and move forward – always forward.

On day, during one of our countless conversations about life we discussed the kind of funeral each of us wanted. I said that I wanted a big spectacle of a funeral where people beat their breasts and scream things like, “WHY do you always take the GOOD ones!?!? TAKE ME INSTEAD TAKE ME!” Then someone throw themselves on my coffin, knocks it over and my stiff, lifeless body rolls across the floor while people faint and puke.

Katrina just laughed and said, “Not me. Just donate my organs and cremate me.” And that’s just what was done. So even in death she schooled me at the art of selflessness.

Katrina Devita was my mentor; though I didn’t really see all she had done and the way she changed my life until she was gone. Sadly, doesn’t that always seem like the case? For a long time, I also didn’t understand that every peaceful moment I had could be traced back to our conversations in the kitchen. I see that now as well. She loved me when I was at my most unlovable and never gave up on me and in doing so helped heal my wounded heart. Now I understand all of this and the sense of obligation I have to honor her efforts by trying to make the world a better place and maybe even help someone who is hurting the way I once was.

Thank you Katrina. Wherever you are.