Eulogy

Jeannie was many things – manager, technician, traveler, photographer...one of the information age’s early adopters.

Over a decade ago, I was on the internet, before it was just “on-line,” and got a note from PeachesH. The topic was trivial, Broncos football, but we soon were corresponding. It was Jeannie, of course, a long time before there was a match.com.

She made Pueblo Blue Print a document technology leader, the first in southern Colorado to scan, plot, archive to digital media, and work with vector drawing tools. She installed a sophisticated network that ran reliably for a decade.

A local big business got a proposal to scan and archive deteriorating prints. They had no idea why they’d want to do that – then. Jeannie was ahead of them all.

Hard words never came to her. If someone or something hurt her, they just weren’t again mentioned.

Jeannie pitched a tent in Holland, took a train to Moscow, slept on the dirt floor of a hovel in Afghanistan, stood on the Acropolis. She shot lions in Africa – with a camera, of course. She spent three days in Paris without a change of clothes, never complained. Such trivia shouldn’t distract her from enjoying. Much of the travel she enjoyed so much was with her mother, Irma Jean.

She was playfully humorous, in an endearing way. Whimsical.

Everything had a personality, a story, a soul, a name. Of course pets did, and Jeannie had those, including Peaches the Elkhound, and Morris the neurotic cat.

Zeus was the undersized Hyundai that struggled over the mountains to visit a friend in New Mexico. After that there was Snobal, then Prancer.

The cows grazing the Monterey hills have their stories. On Friday, they’re waiting for the bulls to show up for a night out. Naturally, our partner and alter ego is a stuffed bear named Murphy. He was in our room on a trip to Sonoma. There was no doubt she’d have to adopt him.

She became a recognized photographer in auto racing. She counted many in the sport amongst her friends. Her peers were her biggest fans, one writing that Jeannie “...quietly went about taking the most wonderful pictures of life in the ALMS and on the road...”

I began a letter to Jeannie while flying here Sunday. Within its pages I wrote, “You’re so deep in my life, in my memories, in all the things around me, that you’ll never really be gone. You’re everywhere, in everything – but you’re not there. I’m not alone – but I am lonely. Does that make sense?”

It does. Reverend Calhoun read a verse noted in Jeannie’s confirmation bible. I got it out of her nightstand the night before she passed away. I turned to the presentation inscription, but was drawn rather to this, written in her hand on the opposite leaf at a very difficult time, when her father took his own life.

God, give me sympathy and sense
And help to keep my courage high.
God, give me calm and confidence
And please, a twinkle in my eye.

The sun shows after every storm,
There is a solution for everyProblem,
and the soul’sHighest duty is to be of
Good cheer.

Through the beauties of
Nature and growing things one
Sees the everlasting
Presence of God.

She never lost that twinkle, or the ability to see that everlasting presence. Nor should we. Go with God, Jeannie.