Just Like Jeannie George

I’ll never forget the first time I saw Jeannie George.

It was on Facebook, and I knew she looked just like, Donna White.

I thought to myself, this is Donna but it says a different name. It wasn’t long until my husband noticed a comment that she had made on my devotion page.

He began talking about Jeannie. I asked him who that was, I thought it was Donna, and he began to tell me all about the entire family!

He had grown up with them in East Manchester and he had all kinds of stories. We passed her house and he showed me that it was where she lived. Not long after, I had the opportunity to meet Jeannie at a women’s meeting.

She was as pretty as in her profile picture. Like, the Loretta Little, Jacqueline Onassis and Audrey Hepburn pretty.

She had style and her hair.. and her glasses.. she was beautiful I thought. And gosh was she sweet. My husband knew her a lifetime, but I only had the pleasure of being Fac

ebook friends with the occasional meeting. And communicating through Facebook. I thought she was unique and fun and gorgeous.

And then she announced the dreadful C word. Cancer. I hated that news. Not Jeannie. She was so fun, like her sisters.

As we all know, the outcome was her death from the illness. We attended the visitation and I’m almost 100 percent sure that I have never seen a crowd as large as I saw that night. Just wow. I

t spoke volumes to me. She was exactly what I saw her to be and what my husband had told me about her. A good friend loved by so very many. What an impression that she made on so many throughout her lifetime.

I wonder what our legacy will be? What will people say about us, and how we lived out our days.

Will they remember our smile so bright, our respect or our sense of humor? Maybe they will tell stories about the impact we made on others.

You don’t have to be old to die. That’s the part we can’t understand. All of our days are numbered though, we can be certain of that.

I don’t know what people would say about me or you…. But I’d be alright if they said I was just like Jeannie George.

“The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well”.-Ralph Waldo Emerson