Posting about someone who has died feels pretty insane. It’s like writing a birthday card to a baby......like, who’s this for...? But today would’ve been Katie Yokota’s 26th birthday. She was beautiful and wise and always affable and so so sooo funny. Her death has turned me inside out. But what feels really sad to me today is thinking of all the people who will never get to know her. So maybe this is one way to make it so that she’s still touching new people, to make it so that she’s still here. I met Katie when I was 3 years old, she was my first friend. Sometimes I feel like my life started as Katie’s friend. We talked every day, went places without our parents, got our first bras together, she legit came with me on my “first date”... I was a coward and she just came with us like it was her job. She was astonishingly empathetic, unwavering in her patience and affection. I went to Katie with everything, with crushes and outfits and all my questions and worries. She was the first person I came out to because I knew she would understand. Katie didn’t know spite or acrimony. In over 20 years, I never once saw her be cruel. It was inconceivable to her. Of course people took advantage of her good-naturedness and even then, she was gracious. I was not, I hated anyone who mistreated her. Katie was just so talented. She was insatiably inquisitive and always working on a new skill. She baked three-tier cakes, crocheted scarves, plucked at her harp, made beautiful lucite jewelry. She could make something out of anything. She also dressed insane, in discordant colors and patterns, but she always looked perfect. Katie is so alive to me. I think of her laughing and agreeing and lip syncing. She can hear a song once and remember every lyric. She hates the way sloths look and move. She’s watching a movie with her glasses on, she’s eating dinner, she’s getting out of her blue car. It’s hard to imagine that someone as loved as Katie could ever know how much we loved her but I feel certain that she did. We never hid it from her because we couldn’t. I’m so happy that I got to know her. And if you did not, you would have loved her so much.