Rabbi's Blog

Kathleen Ann Meals

Elianna Segulah bat Avraham v’Sarah z”l

8/27/50 – 4/29/13

“Cops and Jews” 

“Aishet Chayil mi yimtzah, v’rachok mip’ni’nim michrah.  A woman of valor.  A strong woman, who can find her?  Her worth is above rubies,” says the Book of Proverbs.” Who can find her?  We found one in Kathy Meals; a strong, courageous, tenacious woman of integrity, humor and enormous faith, who left us too soon. I know what a tremendous shock this has been for us all in the brutally quick way in which this cancer took Kathy’s life.  Hard as it is for those of us left behind, I have never seen anyone as unafraid of dying and so able to embrace the end as Kathy and that, I believe, is part of why it was so fast.  Once she knew she was dying, she got on with it in the same effortless, no-nonsense way in which she lived her life.  Kathy believed, as do I, that she would be joining her beloved Bob.  Amazingly, Kathy died in the same bed, in the same room, number 108, in the Hospice as Bob did three and a half years ago!

Yesterday when I was talking to the family, Kathy’s son Adam summed it all up in a way, “Cops and Jews.  That’s what Kathy was about,” he said.  “Cops and Jews.”  Well we have a lot of cops here and a lot of Jews, but Kathy and her beloved husband Bob, may have been the last two in the whole of Boulder County who were both cops and Jews! Kathy was an Aishet Chayil, a woman of valor, as a cop and as a Jew and there was no messing with her as either.

Kathleen Ann Meals was born in a naval hospital in Bethesda, Maryland on August 27^th 1950 to Robert H. Roberts and Patricia Ann Priest.  The family moved around a lot with a dad in the Marine Corps, and they moved to Turkey when Kathy was really young. She was the second of six siblings: Michael, Robert, David, Sharon and Patty.  From a young age, Kathy was already the boss in the family and, in a way, more of a mother than a sister, with her graceful, if a bit firm and bossy, way of taking care of everybody, which she did to the end.

After training, Kathy became the first female Police Officer in Brookfield, Massachusetts, where she met John Andrew Bressem, the Police Chief who became her husband and father to her children.  The family moved to Virginia and Kathy worked in a software company, which she continued when they moved to Colorado in 1988, until she found her way back to her real passion, police work.  Initially, she was a reserve officer with Boulder County Sheriff’s Department, then worked in the jail and eventually out on the streets, which she loved.  Early on in this role, Kathy got a call to go out and find a mountain lion.  She said, “what I am going to do with it if I find it?”  So, the story goes, she got on the PA in the car and called “here kitty kitty. Here kitty kitty.”  In spite of this, she was loved and respected by her colleagues, especially her soul mate Bob who became her life partner and they went on an amazing journey together of love, fellowship and religious quest.  They found Judaism together and boy did they take it seriously and deeply! Their journey continues in a different realm now.

Kathy was a mother to many, including her actual children, but for Brandi and her husband DJ and Adam and his wife Vicky, as well as for Bonnie and Brenda, she was the ultimate protector.  Kathy’s sister Patty remembers a time when Adam was little and Kathy heard a sound and within minutes, probably seconds, was downstairs with a gun in hand ready to defend her boy.  It turns out the sound was Adam turning in his sleep.  Kathy was known for being a great shot and taught dozens of people to shoot, especially women, and many people in the Jewish community.  Not me.  For Kathy, this too was part of her ultimate instinct to keep everyone safe.  If she wasn’t going to be able to protect you, you should at least be able to protect yourself, was her philosophy.

Brandi fondly remembers all that her mom taught her, not just shooting, but cake decorating, quilting and basket weaving.  Kathy was so accomplished at so many things including her painting, and she was an avid reader and student of Judaism.  She probably read more Jewish books than I have and certainly more Twilight books, which she was addicted to and got mad at Brandi for introducing her to them.  Brandi also remembers as a child being at an amusement park with her mom about to get on a ride where people were screaming and Kathy checked to see if Brandi was scared and she said “no, let’s scream.”  So they went on the ride and screamed and screamed together the whole time.  Brandi, you have screamed and laughed and cried and shared so much with your mother and I have seen in these few weeks how present and attentive and open you have been with her, every moment right up to the end. I know how much you and DJ and your boys Cody and Cooper (Bug and Boo), for whom Kathy was Bubbie, will miss her and I also know how much she loved you all. All of you.  Adam and Vicky, Bonnie, Brenda, her brothers and sisters Mike, Sharon, Patty and Bob.  May you all be comforted by the memories. I am sure you can all still hear that amazing cackle of laugh, that laugh that somehow made everything better.

Kathy had an incessant sense of humor up to the end.  Just a couple of weeks ago after intense radiation in her left eye, she said to someone, “I see my whole life passing before my eye.” Referring to the good one.  Apparently Kathy’s very last words were to Adam, as he was coughing in the hospice room, and she said “You sound like a horse.”

Kathy jumped into everything that she did with both feet and ran to do anything and everything, from her art to her years of volunteering at the rape crisis center here in Boulder County, to spending time with her grandsons, to trying occasionally to convince the rest of the family about Judaism!  Kathy did not do anything halfheartedly and does not just have one Jewish community that she was part of and that love her, but three!  She has good friends in Aish Kodesh, Bonai Shalom and Chabad in Longmont, with many rabbis and teachers who feel blessed to have had Kathy as a student and, in many ways, as a teacher too. Yehudis, Rabbi Bornstein and Shayna, Rabbi Goldfeder and Ketriella and I all consider ourselves blessed to have been part of Kathy’s Jewish journey. She had a chance to travel with Rabbi Bornstein and his community to Israel last year and this was such an incredible trip for her and she was so grateful she had the opportunity, as she had wanted to go there for years. She said it was the best trip of her life. From what I can understand, she was like a gatekeeper on the bus, keeping everyone safe and accounted for and ready to use an AK47 if called to.

There are so many more stories to tell and memories to share about this formidable woman, this Aishet Chayil, Kathy Meals, and we will hear more, but for now, we acknowledge just how much she will be missed by so many and we pray that her soul is at peace and that she and Bob are reunited in a blissful realm beyond the pain and suffering.  I am not sure what Jewish cops do up in heaven, but I am sure they are taking care of business and continuing to protect us all in some way.

Adam, Brandi, Vicky, DJ, Cody, Cooper, Bonnie, Brenda, Mike, Sharon, Patty and all of Kathy’s many friends who cherish our relationship with Kathy, may we be comforted and strengthened by the blessing and the gift of her life and her memory.