From Dr. Jane's Notebook


Friendship


The sudden loss of our Editor in Chief, Betsy Seale, speaks to the fragility of life. I, for one, have been at a loss for words as this reality struggles to sink in. Having had the honor of being a contributing writer to the Hamburger Square Post for the past 25 years, I’d like to share a few thoughts with you, her readers.

My family and I moved to Greensboro from Tampa, Florida on Christmas Eve of 1985. After a couple months of unpacking and settling in, I contemplated the state of my professional life and wrote down my top ten professional goals. In addition to re-establishing my professional practice, one of my life objectives was to write a newspaper column.

As luck would have it, I happened to be at Universal Printing on Spring Garden Street one day when the print shop owner suggested that I contact Betsy Seale about writing for the Hamburger Square Post. I called Betsy that very day, wrote my first two articles, and with few exceptions, this column has been published every month since October 1987. There is something to be said for writing down your goals.

For 25 years, Betsy Seale and I had an incredible working relationship. As I pause to consider what made us so compatible, these are the thoughts that come to mind.

In her classic song, Big Yellow Taxi, Joni Mitchell sings the line, “you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.”  In truth, I have always valued and appreciated my relationship with Betsy and I will miss her terribly. It is a shocking thing to lose a friend, a colleague, and a mentor... but I will be forever grateful.

      -----Dr. Jane

©Copyright, 2012, Jane R. Rosen-Grandon. All rights reserved.            

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