Dear Jody,

When I think of you I think of wild, crazy color. As a child I was awed by you - art everywhere, a picnic table in your dining room, students who worshiped you, and a wardrobe that consistently featured converse with crazy socks. This set the stage for my admiration but you entered into legend when you showed up as a personal angel during the hardest physical experience I ever had. Your humor, steadiness and total selflessness was appreciated more deeply than you can know. I can’t go back to that memory without weeping with gratitude for you. You are a light - thank you so much for sharing it with me - and so many others.

With deep gratitude,

Jenny

Dear Joy,

Oh, the memories! Long, long, long conversations, crazy ideas, testing of boundaries, obscene amounts of calories consumed in one sitting, first dates, last dates, proms, dinners, classes, late nights, early mornings, depths of despair and peaks of transcendent joy - we shared an incredible variety of experiences. I am so grateful that we found each other when we did and promptly joined at the hip. You taught me in close range how to be an unconditional friend. Not only to me but to everyone. I can only hope that my own daughters can have friends as kind and genuine and inclusive as you. Thank you.

All my love and gratitude,

Jenny

My dear Anna,

I often marvel that I am your mother and not the other way around. You are so wise, kind, patient, and focused - I don’t know what I can possibly offer you that you don’t already have! It’s an honor to be a student of yours - and especially amazing that we get to live in the same home. I love it when your rich inner world spills out in your stories, sense of humor, and artwork. I love the questions you ask and the insights you share. I love watching you love your sister. I love traveling with you. I love holding your hand. I love hugging you. I love being with you. I can’t count the ways I am grateful for you - I simply am. In all the ways.

Love you to the moon and back - times infinity, infinity times.

Mom

Dear Phyllis,

I remember when you sat with me in your living room and taught me how to piece together my first quilt. I don’t remember a heavenly visitation but there could have been. I fell in love with quilting so deeply that it was years before I lifted my head to take a breath. For a long time quilting was my creative outlet, therapy, and one-way ticket to the poor house. Thank you so very much for taking the time to share your passion - it fell on fertile soil and brought me joy as I was able to express my love to many family members, friends and brand-new babies.

In gratitude,

Jenny

Dear Bev,

I am grateful for our wonderful conversations - in any form they take. I am grateful for your love for home and family. And I am profoundly grateful for your example of moving forward through tragedy. One breath into the next, into the minute, into the hour, into the day, into the week, into the month and into the year. Always forward. Thank you.

Big love to you,

Jenny

Dear Montira,

Thank you for sharing your incredible culinary skills with our family and our community. Your food has been a part of many celebrations in our family: birthdays, successes at work, anniversaries and just because. You’ve provided a place for long talks with friends, dates with my husband, and time alone. Thank you, thank you, thank you for making the decision to share your talents with our little town.

With gratitude,

Jenny

Dear Stacie,

You opened my eyes as a teenager to what a young woman could be: fiercely intelligent, well-read, adventurous, independent, grounded, kind, and capable. I was in awe of all you had done in your relatively short life and it caused me to consider for the first time the boundaries I had thoughtlessly set for myself. Thank you for waking me up to womanhood and all its incredible potential.

With love,

Jenny

Dear Whitney,

I have loved getting to know your deep kindness, loving mothering, and solid foundation. You and Jordan are a great match and I admire how well you work together in both business and family. You are such a lovely person - in all the ways - and I’m grateful to be a part of your family.

With love,

Jenny

Dear Katie,

It’s been a total delight to me to see where and when our paths have crossed. I’m so grateful for our friendship, your forgiveness for my boneheaded-ness that you had to endure, your dedication to your muses, your strength, your endurance, your patience, your creativity, your curiosity, your deep insights, and your contagious laugh. Thank you for your continued friendship. I am incredibly grateful for and inspired by you.

Blessings to you,

Jenny

Dear Linda,

Our relationship has been a complicated one - I’m so grateful for the perspective of age and I have come to a place of deep respect for you. I feel like my eyes have cleared with adulthood. I can now see a woman who is fiercely loyal to her family, who loves her husband, who has a huge heart for helping others, who is very intelligent, and who can endure anything. When you receive this heart in person, please know that it is a physical peace offering. I created this piece to honor our past and look with hope to the future. Thank you for teaching me how to open my heart.

I love you.

Jenny

Dear Sara,

Thank you for showing me what can be done with determination, sacrifice, and a whole lot of work. I have always been impressed by your quiet fierceness. It’s been such a pleasure for me to watch you chip away at your goals - it inspires me to keep pressing forward with my own. You are incredible.

All my love,

Jenny

Dear Julia,

I’ve never known anyone who is as passionate about life as you. You have always been full of incredible ideas for how to tap into the magic of life. I suspect your body is made of fairy dust rather than the usual flesh and blood. Thank you for sprinkling wonder everywhere you go.

Yours, always.

Jenny

Dear Cindy,

Thank you for showing me that with a lot of hard work, persistence, and business savvy, an artist definitely does not have to starve. I am grateful for the generosity with which you share your wisdom, experience and friendship. You are pure class all the way through.

With love and admiration,

Jenny

Dear Becca,

You’ve seen me through childhood and adulthood and are still my friend - it feels like a miracle. You have one of the kindest, most gentle souls of anyone I’ve ever met. Thank you for your kindness, patience, and refusal to leave me to the wolves - even when that would have been the most reasonable thing to do. You are so very dear to me - I love you so, my sweet friend!

Always,

Jenny

Dear Arlene,

When two circles overlap, the space of commonality is the birthplace of all other shapes. I was curious how long it would take to create a heart shape working from that creative space. Not too long, it turns out!

I think of our conversations like this painting - when the circle of my mind meets the circle of your mind I am always delighted by what we create together. It’s always fascinating and leaves me with things to ponder for days after. You are insightful and wise and endlessly curious. Plus you’re just a lot of fun. I am deeply grateful for you.

I love you to the moon and back, my friend.

Jenny

Dear Peggy,

Your sweet smile and huge heart fills me with joy every time I think of you. I am so grateful that our paths crossed when and how they did. Thank you for sharing your flowers, your sweet compliments, your insights into your happy marriage, and your delightful sense of humor. You are a gem of infinite worth.

With love,

Jenny

Dear Heidi,

When I think about you the word that keeps coming to my mind is generous. You are generous with your time, generous with your friendship, generous with your enthusiasm, generous with your support, generous with your attention, generous with your effort. I’ve never known you to do anything halfway - you live all-in and I love that so much about you. I am so grateful for you.

I love and miss you,

Jenny

Dear Amy,

I’m so grateful to know you in the way that I do. I’m grateful for a connection deeper than circumstance or geography. I love that we can pick up a conversation and go - even if it’s been years since the last one. I am grateful for the “small but mighty” force you bring to everything - parenting, work, running, family.

I love you.

Jenny

Dear Connie,

It’s a hard thing to raise a family without family nearby to help and love our kids in real time - I often feel like we are on our own island, fending for ourselves. How can I express the depth of my gratitude then for the ways you’ve stepped in to help us? Watching our kids, spoiling them with treats, simply noticing them, and being our friends - it’s been such a gift. What is so remarkable is that I know we aren’t the only ones you do this for. You have such a kind and generous heart that you share with an efficiency that is truly remarkable.

Thanks for being the village.

Jenny

Dear Margie,

In many ways you were like an older sister to me during my childhood. I looked up to you and loved the peek into the future you gave me. Boys! Highschool! College! Marriage! Children! I am grateful for the ways you tested the waters and then reported back to me. I always felt so honored that you took me under your wing in the way that you did. Thank you so much that gift. I loved you then and I love you now.

In gratitude,

Jenny

Dear Shauna,

Thank you for always making me feel like family. You are one of the warmest and most welcoming people I ever known and love the time we get to spend together - which is not nearly enough! Your dedication to family inspires me to look for ways I can be more engaged and supportive in my own. I appreciate your attention to detail and how you are careful to see that all the bits and pieces of any puzzle are accounted for. You are such a lovely human and I am grateful to know you in the special way that I do.

All my love and gratitude,

Jenny

Dear Lizzy,

You are blessed with the gift of drawing out rich thoughts and conversation from complete strangers - like myself! You won me over immediately and I now count you as one of my dear friends. I love what you do, what you stand for, what you don’t stand for, your unapologetic bad-assery, and the way you live your life deeply rooted in purpose. You are absolutely astounding and I can’t wait to meet you!

Huge hug to you,

Jenny

Dear Leah,

You will always be my angel! You came into my life when I really needed help and you filled that need so perfectly. I was on the ragged edge as a young mother and you just sweetly stepped in and cared for our little family as only you could - with songs and stories and games and your sweet laughter. Thank you for giving me the gift of time and sanity. You saved much more than the day.

All my love,

Jenny