"I Have No Fear of Dying"

She walked into the conference room and gave me the look. Over the past 14 years, Vera Katz has greeted me with several variations of the "What are you doing here?" look, ranging from obvious annoyance to at least feigned tolerance, if not necessarily unbridled joy.

This gaze fell somewhere in between, though I feared it came closer to version No. 1.

I didn't blame her. On the mayor's Sept. 2 calendar, her scheduler had carved out a precious quarter-hour to talk to Byron Beck, the local queer columnist, about his mom's battle with cancer. There was nothing about a former political reporter tagging along with not one, but two tape recorders in hand.

Two weeks earlier, the Portland Tribune had run a front-page article chronicling her mayoral legacy, and at the time of our interview, The Oregonian was preparing a detailed account of Katz's treatment regime (published Sunday).

Katz quickly figured out that we wanted more from her, not just poignant quotes for a short column about one man's struggle to come to grips with his mother's mortality or even another news story about juggling chemotherapy with city business. Byron and I were there to publicly pose the question that everyone in town is whispering: Is Vera dying? And, if so, how does she feel about it? (A week later, Katz would get a dose of good news. The cancer, for now, seems to be held in check, though no one is saying that it is gone.)

As Katz sat down at the table, decked out in her red-highlighted wig (but no lipstick), she made it clear that she intended to stick with the agenda. Picking at a piece of Starbucks coffeecake, she offered motherly advice to Byron while fending off our efforts to turn the conversation to her. Eventually, however, she relented, and the 15 minutes stretched to 50, as for the first time, she talked publicly and intimately about her grave illness and what she has learned from facing death.

--John Schrag

Byron Beck: You look really good. I was kind of scared to see you.

Vera Katz: Oh, I look better after I put my lipstick on. Tell me about your mother.

It actually started with my grandmother. Last September, she fell and broke her hip. My dad had a heart attack two weeks later, and then my mom found out she had breast cancer.

Oh, my God! And did it spread?

No. She had chemo--and now they say if she can make it five years, she'll be OK....

Yeah. The benchmark is five years for recurrence. In other words, if you get into your fifth year, you'll stay clean. This is what you want to believe in: If you get to five years, you'll be all right. But it's really never all right--it's in remission.

And you made it to almost five years, right?

Four. So it's four for this [points to breast] and I think I'm still cancer-free. But then I had cancer somewhere else. And a completely different cancer. Now there is no goal. There is no chance. But tell me, how old is your mother?

She'll be 64 later this year.

She's young.

Yeah. And she's a spitfire just like you. But I never felt like I was there for my mom during the process. I wasn't sure what she expected from me, like I wonder, what do you expect out of us?

Who are you talking about?

I'm talking about people like myself: people that care about you, that voted for you. What do you expect out of us?

Sweetie, you cannot imagine the love, the commitment, the care, the prayers I have received from the community. I can't even categorize it overall. You shouldn't really feel badly about that. I could not believe the overwhelming cards and email. Hundreds and hundreds.

John Schrag: My sense, from talking to Byron, is that he felt a bit helpless, because he wasn't sure how sick his mom was. And in Portland, a lot of people ask us, because we're in the media, "How's Vera? How sick is she?" Do you feel comfortable talking about all this?

Yeah, I do, but I want to talk to him first. Look, there's nothing you can do for your mother other than love her, other than talk to her, other than tell her you'll be all right...because she's scared. She's scared that she may not be around for a long period of time. You need to let her know that you will be OK. There are things you learn, that we learn from this period about ourselves and how people view us.

BB: What have you learned?

Um...I did learn about my family, something personal. I'm not quite ready to articulate it, on the record.

You know, when my mom got sick all the bad stuff between us just disappeared.

That's the--that's the good news out of all this. That's the good news.

Why is it good news?

Because your relationship with your parents changes.

You love them more?

Exactly. If you can articulate it, it creates a relationship that is so rich, and so satisfying, and so strong, and so loving. I am only talking about this because I've experienced this with my own son. I know that if I didn't get sick, I would have never experienced that.

How is Jesse handling this?

He's very calm.

Does he cry?

I never saw him cry over this. But I know that what's being expressed now was never expressed before. I mean, sure, he loved me, but he now knows how vulnerable the situation is. And the time we now spend when he comes up--he comes up about once a month--is very special to him and is very special to me. And we talk about things, like the divorce, that we never talked about.

JS: And Mel? You've always stayed close, right?

My relationship with my ex-husband? Yes, but now he comes in with dinner almost every night! He is there for me, and his wife is there for me. He doesn't do the cooking, she does [laughing]. He packs it up, and does the dishes. And he told Jesse, when Jesse first came up, "Two things you need to do: You need to do laundry for your mom. And you got to clean out her refrigerator," because I was in ICU for a week.

BB: John's right--people do want to know, what's up with you, now that you've got cancer?

Let me briefly tell you where I am at. First of all, the chemo regime is very difficult.

Now you didn't go through chemo with the breast cancer, just radiation.

With the breast--right. Because the cancer hadn't burst out. But what I have now is a sarcoma, which is very, very different, because it's very aggressive, very invasive. It can spread very easily. And when they discovered it, they thought they took it all out, but then they found out that it had actually grown.

JS: And this is a pretty rare form of cancer, right?

Yeah. You go on the Web, well, there's hardly anything on it. In books, they don't even discuss it. There's maybe 12 cases in the country. There are a couple of clinical trials--very, very small ones. And the prognosis is God-awful. Chemotherapy doesn't help. Radiation doesn't help.

You say the prognosis is awful. How awful?

Some people live two years. Some people die before the two-year period. So it's really not terribly good. The oncologist asked, "What's your goal?" I said my goal is to finish my term. I said to her, 'You keep me alive until Dec. 31."

And then?

She said OK. And we started the chemo routine. The bad news is that it creates a nightmare in your stomach and in your tastebuds.

BB: Did you throw up at all?

No. She found pills that have kept me from throwing up. The nausea is still there, but it's something you can live with.

What about your appetite?

Terrible. I don't eat for two weeks. You see me eat now because it's the eating week. Want to know the truth? I've lost a lot of weight. I have to try to make it up.

JS: Tell us about the transfusions.

The blood is one last nightmare. I'm in the hospital, in the outpatient clinic, 7:30 in the morning for platelets, because the chemo does so much damage to my hematology, my blood chemistry. And then I'm dealing with the dialysis in the evenings.

Because of the kidney damage?

Yes. My dialysis may not be permanent, but as long as I have chemo, it's going to be permanent. [My oncologist] needs to extend the time [between chemotherapy treatments] to take care of the blood. First it was once every two weeks...then it was once every three weeks. Now it's once every four weeks. It's good news for me, because then I'm going to feel pretty--pretty strong. The risk is that you don't know whether the cells are going to get aggressive.

BB: You seem to have a lot of energy today.

You caught me in a good week. After the blood transfusions, I do feel different. I have more energy. I did not nap yesterday. I took some work home. And cleared up a whole pile. I could not have done it without having my red blood cells elevated.

My mom kept working. She found strength in it.

Absolutely. You know, I wake up, and say, "My God, I've got another day." I thank God for that. And I'm fearful that if I can't get up and do some meaningful work, then what's this all for? I have to tell you, I am so scared of Jan. 1, 2005.

The adage is, no one lies on their deathbed saying, "I wish I spent more time at the office." Is that true for you?

[laughs]

Did your public legacy come at costs to your private life?

I am sure that 32 years of anxiety and stress did some damage to my health. I wouldn't have believed that 20 years ago, because you feel young and vibrant and you eat the right foods. But I am convinced after reading all the literature that it had an effect on me. Am I sorry for it? No, I don't have any regrets.

JS: What scares you?

What scares me right now is that you really don't know. You can't plan. I can't even plan day to day, because I get a call that says, "Get your ass into the hospital"--oops, get your butt into the hospital--"you got to get a transfusion." So I can't plan: Do I fix the roof? Do I go on a trip? Well, does Beijing have a dialysis center? That's the frustration, and that's what leads to disappointment.

BB: Because you are a control freak.

I am a control freak.

You want to see the future, and you can't. Doesn't that free you up a little bit as a person, if not as a mayor?

I don't know that yet.

Does life become more profound? Do small moments take on bigger meanings?

Words. Just someone's kind words, a thought that they want to share with you. Something you read. It magnifies what you need to spend time thinking about. I remember after radiation for my breast cancer, I'm walking to Reed campus to meet the president of Reed, to help someone get into school from China, and I saw a flower. And I stopped. I did that for a long time. The problem with all of that is that you sort of forget about it once you are healed.

And right now?

Right now it is constant. I look at the window and look for my little angel, which is my little hummingbird, and I look for her every single day. And if you see the hummingbird, then it's some sort of a sign. Those things become really very prominent.

The Jewish high holy days are coming up. Does it take on more significance for you this year?

No.

Do you consider yourself a religious person?

No. More spiritual than religious.

Do you pray?

In a strange way, I do. I give thanks that I can get up in the morning. And that didn't happen at the very beginning. I stayed in bed. I just didn't even have the energy in the first two weeks of chemo.

JS: I can't image the woman WW once portrayed as the Energizer Bunny in a hospital bed for two weeks.

It was awful, but I was so fortunate to meet nurses--they were angels, those nurses. You cannot imagine. I had no clue what was going on. They taught me things. They talked to me. They explained things to me as I went through all of this with my family and friends.

BB: You are still the mayor. There are still struggles out there. There are still fights to be fought.

We have an outline of all the things that we need to finish; actually, we've put a couple more on the list. I've got four months to go. We've got to deal with the midtown blocks. We've got to deal with all the other things that didn't get up that high. And that's what's important now.

JS: Is there a danger that your legacy won't be adequately scrutinized, a feeling that "Vera has cancer, we have to be nice to her now"?

I've thought of that, and I've said to myself, well, maybe it's a balance to all the other unfair attacks that I had to experience, like the stuff about the business climate.

I ask because we discussed it this week when we wrote the Rogue column about the city's crazy idea of demolishing PGE Park. You know, your name could be in there, but it isn't. I said, "My God, we can't make a woman who's dying our Rogue of the Week."

I don't see myself dying. That's the worst case. Where I think I will end up is controlling it. If it means that it will have a negative impact to my heart or some other organs, we're going to have to find some other chemistry to deal with it. The second time I went to dialysis, I met a woman who had been dealing with it for eight years. The best I see for me is being in remission, which is what I am in now for my breast cancer. Maybe I'll be very lucky and survive for another 10 years, or two. Or maybe a couple of months and then come back and start all over again.

BB: I asked my mom what she wanted to say to you, and she said, "Stay strong."

That is the expression that I use. We've got to have a positive attitude. And you just have to. You can't get up every morning and do what you do, and be with your loved ones, and feel sorry for yourself. Or think that your ashes are going to be distributed in a couple of months. You just can't. And that's what I learned. And that's the gift of this illness. That's the adventure they talk about.

Is this adventure teaching you something?

Oh God, yes. I have no fear of dying. I don't have any fear of dying. If you ask me how I went through all this, I can't tell you. It's just laying on your back for 11 days trying to figure out life. As trite as that might seem.

The Mayoral Treatment

KATZ'S HISTORY WITH CANCER.

February 2000: Mayor Vera Katz is diagnosed with breast cancer, which, after surgery and radiation, is in remission.

April 2004: During a hysterectory, doctors find cancerous tumors, unrelated to the breast cancer, which are removed. A CT scan shows they got it all.

June: During a follow-up exam, her gynecologist finds a hard mass. A CT scan shows a rare aggressive cancer, called adenosarcoma, in her abdomen spreading to her lungs. She begins chemotherapy in mid-June. Doctors discover her esophagus is bleeding (attributed, in part, to heavy use of anti-inflammatory drugs to combat back pain) and her kidneys are failing (from the chemo).

July-August: Katz's oncologist tries to find a balance between enough chemotherapy to kill the cancer but not so much as to wipe out the mayor's blood. She changes the twice-a-month sessions to once a month. Katz begins thrice-a-week dialysis sessions (which last about three hours) to clean her blood and regular blood transfusions to boost her energy level.

Sept. 8: A new CT scan indicates that cancer has, for now, been stopped. While celebrating the good news, Katz's oncologist warns that undetected cancerous cells could again spread quickly if left unchecked, much as they did this spring.

Sept. 9: Katz undergoes her fifth chemotherapy treatment.

My Mother’s Son

BY JESSE KATZ

Last year, for her 70th birthday, Jesse Katz took his mom to Mexico City.If you grow up in Portland, you are not supposed to run off to Los Angeles. If you grow up in Portland and are the son of the mayor--if you are, indeed, the only child of the most accomplished woman in the city's political history--you are not supposed to even consider life in such a contrary place. Seattle maybe, possibly San Francisco. But L.A.? My home now is not just 1,000 miles from Portland; it is the anti-Portland, a vast, mad, unhealthful, extravagant sprawl, everything my mom has fought to inoculate her home against.

For a quarter of a century, we have lived this way, at a distance, exchanging visits once or twice a year--a close, but somewhat orchestrated and unsentimental relationship, built on updates more than on shared adventure. When I got the news several months ago that a rare and aggressive cancer had invaded her body, it was this fact that I found myself dwelling on: My mom was sick, and I was somewhere else.

By the time I was able to arrange a flight, almost a week later, she had already undergone her first round of chemo. The side effects proved to be unexpectedly toxic, damaging her lungs, her esophagus, her kidneys. When we embraced, finally, she was in the ICU at Good Sam. It felt like it had taken me forever to get there. She told me she had made it to that point on a prayer, to not die before she saw me again. We shared a lot of tears that day, talking, holding hands, wading through our peculiar mix of love and guilt and pride.

As a young girl, my mom had fled the Nazi army, leaving Europe for the promise of America. As a young woman, she had swapped the thrum of New York for the uncertainty of Portland, a destination that in the early 1960s must have seemed like the edge of the universe. At 39, she had convinced herself that a full-time housewife could earn a spot in the Oregon Legislature--and after 32 years in public office, has helped to transform the town of my youth into one of the nation's great livable cities.

From the time I was little, I have absorbed these narratives; I have learned to equate opportunity with exodus, success with reinvention. How else could I have summoned the confidence to show up alone in L.A. after college, to carve out a career in journalism and invest myself in a community (teaching creative writing in juvenile hall, running my son's youth baseball league ) to which I have no natural connection?

There have been many more visits since that first day at the hospital, and lately her prognosis has had more ups than downs, but those first few hours together were all, really, that either of us needed.

Our conversation was interrupted by a parade of nurses and doctors, our hugs hampered by the maze of tubes and wires and pumps and alarms that had kept my mom alive long enough for me to arrive. She was scared but undeterred, ready to confront new challenges, eager to establish fresh milestones. My voice was shaky. I am the way I am, I told her, because she is the way she is.

"This is your gift to me, Mom."

--Lincoln High grad Jesse Katz moved to Los Angeles in 1985, when he was 22. He is a senior writer at Los Angeles magazine.

A Vera Katz Timeline

Mayor Vera Katz, 71, was born in Düsseldorf, Germany. Her family fled to Spain and then New York City to escape Nazi persecution.

Katz earned a BA from Brooklyn College in New York in 1955.

Katz moved to Portland in 1964, with her former husband, Mel, a painter.

In 1972 Katz, a Democrat, was elected to the Oregon House of Representatives, representing Northwest Portland.

In 1985, her colleagues selected her to be Speaker of the House, the first Oregon woman to hold that post.

In 1992 Katz defeated then-city commissioner Earl Blumenauer to become Portland mayor.

Katz was re-elected in 1996 and 2000. (The original verison of this story inaccurately stated that Vera Katz was the first Portland mayor to serve three terms.)

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