My word for Giac (pronounced Jack) is "evocative." She could call forth a depth of feeling like no one else I have ever known, without appearing even to try.

How many of us knew that Giac was quite the heartbreaker in her day? She once sent me a xerox of a grainy black and white photo of herself when a young adult..... a stunning beauty she was, with wise and just-wicked-enough eyes.

She was a wonderful writer.... sent me essays of everyday life that spoke volumes about her vision for life and her skill with words-- I knew she had been a print journalist, but it was like that photo of young Mary-- her gift making a stunning glimpse of the power she had wielded by her thoughts and words, and her ability to SEE.

Another time she sent me a cheering email when I was having a hard time. She had Photoshopped her grinning face into a Mighty-Mouse-in-flight cartoon, and titled the email "Here I Come to Save the Day." And she DID save the day; she still does every time that picture comes up on my screensaver program and my mind chimes in with the perky Mighty Mouse theme song with a slight southern drawl!

She had as much an eye for photography as she had ear for words. In her later years she delighted in complex and beautiful worlds captured in gorgeously-composed and colored candid shots: miniatures. Nature still-life photographs. She was not able to walk far from her door-- but found plenty right there at her doorstep to look deeply into.

Mary, our Giac, loved. "Ah love you, Susan," she would be sure to say at the end of every conversation. Not a quick commonplace-- a slow and intentional delivery of an important message. "Tell Greg Ah love him, too."

She had an openness and a humility at the same time. And that kind of first-class friendship and love were reflected in the response people had to her, such as the day one friend surprised Mary with a sunny day's horseback riding. That friend knew Mary would not be with her for long; according to her doctors, there was no way Mary should have been out of bed at all, much less astride a horse. But-- that friend also knew she had brought Giac more joy, with the horses, than anything else in the world could have brought, and so TOOK her out anyway. Oh, what that meant to Giac! Of course she also made sure a camera caught it ALL. I bet that photo was at her bedside to the end.

There's another photo from a bit earlier that year, that Giac took of the friend who drove her to chemo-- I mean, a picture of the friend actually driving the car. And laughing? The picture is slightly askew, I am sure because Giac was laughing too as she took the picture.

One of Giac great loves was her little bitty dog. She dressed Emmy up in all manner of costumes. In the pix you can tell Emmy is having as much fun as her mistress-- partners in crime.

I think of them often, and of Emmy, happy in the new home Giac picked out for her when she could no longer care for her, and missing her Giac-mommie. ME TOO, Emmy, me too.

~Susan