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My dear friend and fellow A-Z co-host Tina passed on from this world on Saturday.
Tina was one of those rare people who could ask blunt questions that might be too forward coming from anyone else. She had uncanny timing, almost like a sixth sense, for when people needed her, or needed to talk. She was funny, genuine, and most of all loving. Our friendship really started when she sent me an email with some of those blunt questions, at just the right time, before the Challenge in 2013. I needed support, and it turned out that she was just the right person to provide it. From there and through the craziness of the Challenge, our friendship grew. We discovered that we lived only about 30 minutes apart, and vowed to meet at some point. I am so sad now that we only succeeded at hanging out once, but so grateful that we managed that.
Tina has been sick for a while, but has maintained the most incredible positivity through it all. She even managed to continue wrangling the co-hosts while not feeling well. She often spoke of the transformational work she did, writing articles about folks who had come through hardship, working with her church, and of course maintaining her blog for all of us to read. She was an incredible woman and I'm sure that her loss will be felt in her community just as it will be in our blogging world.
We often joked about me smuggling her some red wine at the hospital. I imagine her sitting up in heaven (which of course is fields of sunflowers) looking down at us all, with a glass of wine in her hand and endlessly quotable movies for her viewing pleasure. She's probably talking god's ear off. She's closer now, so he won't have much of a choice but to listen :)
My dear Tina -
Life is Good, and yours was a good life, my friend.
All my love,
~AJ
We will be posting soon at A-Z about what the blogging community can do to help remember Tina.
