Jeannette

One of my writing heroes, Jeannette (2 n's and 2 t's) Buck died last week at the age of 85.

I first met Jeannette in the delivery room at Charles Cole Memorial Hospital as she stood at Dr. George's side, offering encouragement as I labored to bring forth my firstborn. Jeannette - tender and steady, observing this young couple's joy with a mother's heart, with a writer's heart.

I recognized her when we met again in a writing group organized by Leader-Enterprise reporter Wanda Rader.  Through the years, a group of us continued writing together. Dolores with her stories of  peacocks and Virginia's china, Muriel writing of her junk drawer, my mother writing about her grandfathers, me writing about my Woodstock experience and wishbones and the old neighborhood (a piece that might become a blog post). Other stories by other women who wrote with us now and then - brought together by our love of putting words together.

But Jeannette just wrote and wrote and wrote some more. She became an activist for AIDS awareness as she wrote through her son's illness and death. She wrote about grief, what she called the "loose board" that comes up to whack you in the face just when you think you're moving through it. Her beloved life partner lost to her after the long goodbye of Alzheimer's Disease. She wrote of that, too.

Her "Words Of Gold" in the local newspaper brought a weekly dose of local history, family history and rural life to readers across the country. Former editor, Donald Gilliland spoke at Jeannette's memorial service and among other things, he mentioned that she always met her deadlines - high praise in the newspaper world!

The internet arriving in Jeannette's yellow house on Rt. 49 brought her a whole new audience of readers. I considered it an honor to be on the list to receive her weekly column in an email. Her facebook posts and comments were sometimes silly, sometimes insightful and always well written!

Filed away for a moment like this, I have unearthed our writing assignments put together in a packet all those years ago. And this morning, listening to the rain on the roof, I'm thinking about writing - Jeannette's, and mine too, and I hear her whisper to me "just do it" – and I will.

(I blogged about one shared writing experience here.)