Quiet please. There's a lady onstage.

One of my fellow actors from the Rebel Shakespeare Company passed away. She was extremely talented, kind, and I'll never forget her.

I have this one moment in my head of when we were doing...it must have been Hamlet. We were backstage getting into costume. She was playing either Rosencrantz or Guildenstern and I was playing Ophelia. It was either her first or second year in the program, her brother had been doing it before her).

It was one of the last shows and she told me how much she had looked up to me and that when she used to see her brother's shows, she would say, "I wanna be like Kate Rafey" to herself.

I don't think anyone has ever said that since lol.

I hadn't talked to her in years. She dated 2 of my friends and days before she passed. One of them was David who told me he had met a girl that knew me and I remember telling him I was unhappy with the way I had heard through the grapevine she had been treating the other boy. (I still feel guilty about saying that). I found her LJ and wrote on her wall making a joke about how she was stealing another one of my men:

tayimtutim
2004-08-13 02:24 pm (local) (link) Track This
holly! its kate! how are ya? hows life? i see your stealing another one of my men! ;) joking!

holly_says
hi love! it's been far too long
i'm a theif? :( i try to be good, really i do!

The next night, she was hit by a car in Swampscott, along with another girl and passed away the next day. I was already at a pre-college program and could not attend the funeral.

I hadn't seen her in about a year. I didn't think it appropriate for me to go.

Four years later, I am still terrified every time I cross a street. I still think she was the perfect Audrey and a most beautiful person.

RIP HWP