After an uphill battle, fellow gold star Kathleen Frenette quietly left us on Wednesday afternoon.
Cancer entered Kathleen’s life in July 2018. And not just any: triple negative breast cancer, aggressive and generally unforgiving.
In a very personal text (available here) published in Le Journal, she confided following this announcement, “that the ground had collapsed before her, that the sun had set and that darkness had fallen”.
And yet those who know Kathleen know it took a long time for her to give way to darkness, she was easily recognized by her big, powerful laugh that filled the rooms she was in.
After working at several radio and television stations, she settled at the Journal. First to news reports, where, thanks to her great empathy, she specialized in collecting touching testimonies. In recent years she has covered the Quebec court scene.
Even at the height of her illness, she kept reminding me that the courthouse was “her” palace and that one day she would work there again. She never got tired of pacing her hallways, conversing with prosecutors, defense attorneys, judges, and special police officers who had become real family to her.
And then there was her older son, William, of whom she was so proud and who was the center of her life. Whenever we talked and I heard from her, she always told me about her son. “Every second that I can get off the disease and that I can spend with him is worth the hardship of the fight I have to fight,” she always said.
In the same text I mentioned above, Kathleen had said that cancer never managed to get to the bottom of it. “He never made me want to laugh, smile, fight, be positive or be a beautiful, strong and proud person.”
And it was true.
The Journal would like to extend its sincere condolences to all of Kathleen’s loved ones and especially her son William.
John La Roche
information director
The Journal of Quebec