Saturday, December 20, 2008

Another Inspiring Person

When I first moved to Richmond from Harrisonburg VA in 1992, a friend of mine from Harrisonburg knew someone named Jackie over here who was fighting a form of cancer I can't recall, but if memory serves me well, she had been in remission and had a recurrence. My friend asked me if I would visit Jackie in the hospital.
I had never had to do that grown up of a thing before, but I said I would do it. When I met Jackie during the first visit, she looked pretty rough, but still was able to communicate and said she appreciated my visit. I went back one week later and stopped in my tracks the minute I saw Jackie. She was sitting up, her eyes were bright and she said, "Hi Greg, how was your week?" The only words that could come out of my mouth were, "You look fantastic." We had a good visit and she was released from the hospital a few days later.
I will confess that I didn't stay in touch with Jackie as it was an awkward family situation and her friend recommended that I not visit Jackie at home.
About 5 years later, the movie, "The Jackal" (with Bruce Willis) was being filmed in Richmond. There was an article in the local paper about it and in the article, there was a picture of an extra wearing a mini-skirt suit, looking like a million bucks. You've figured out who the extra was, but just in case you haven't, it was Jackie. Need I say more?

A friend of mine has a magnet on her refrigerator that reads, "Why limit happy to just an hour?" That's one of the million or so reasons she is my friend.

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