[S]he had a trait that I see in the very best trial lawyers, the very best teachers, and the very best parents. She was a wonderful listener. She would lower her head a little bit, lean against a counter, and do nothing else but take in what you were saying. She was comfortable with being quiet as she listened, which is a rare and wonderful trait. If she wanted to clarify something, or ask a question, her hand would come up, palm out, to signal that, the gentlest of signs.
Then she would nod. If she nodded hard, her hair would bounce, and sometimes she did nod hard. She understood, and she really did — her intelligence could be sharp and fierce or soft-spoken, but it underlaid everything. She was, as we say in law, a “quick read,” a talent that takes equal measures of intelligence, empathy, and critical thinking.
It was those traits — intelligence, empathy, and critical thinking — that would frame her response. One did not go to Katherine Darmer if you wanted a simple “yes” or affirmation; she was too smart and honest for that.
I cannot ask her about the piece I am pondering [writing], because she is gone. We miss those who have died when we stumble on the hole that they leave, and for Katherine that will be different for different people; she left many very large holes.
For me, the rest of my life, there will be a repetition of the same moment… I am thinking about writing something, or doing something, and it is her counsel I need. That is when I will stumble into that hole and remember her as she was — a woman who worked most hard for people who were not like her, who turned her mind and energy to justice, and who so often used her prodigious gifts in the ways that were best for God’s creation, this world.
Mark W. Osler remembers Katherine Darmer, law professor and advocate for justice. She committed suicide.