She loved this picture and it is the only one I have. She was wearing her favorite necklace of mine and she is just as I will always remember her: warm, kind, beautiful, and radiant. On the back she wrote, "For my dearest Curtis C, with much love always, Jeannie." My thoughts exactly, always.

            I have had the privilege of sorting through the artifacts of Jeannie’s life. She kept mementos from her daily experiences, baseball tickets noting the person who joined her and the score, printed emails about engagements with friends, theater programs and travel paraphernalia, all in neat layers and sorted by years into large envelopes and then storage boxes. The most endearing was the proliferation of thank you notes for her generosity and caring interest in the lives of her friends. Christmas cards and letters had notations about significant information for her to remember. It was physical evidence of how carefully she loved and was appreciated.

             At first it seemed peculiar that she saved so much, then I thought how it showed the degree to which she valued every happening and experience that created her life. I wonder if she intended to review the years.

            Another interesting part of her storage was that so much was in excellent condition and some of the things were from her childhood. The fun part was the arrangement and packaging; a basket with foreign coins, a cloisonné box with shells and a fortune that read “trust in each other,” a large decorated can with a postcard collection, or a cloth bag with the components organized for oriental brush painting. She excelled in all aspects of gift giving and seeing her stored goods was like opening another gift of her design.