The Fable of the Unexpected Loss
I didn't intend to set this effort aside, but I needed time to figure out how to move forward
I feel a bit embarrassed. I’ve written all of these articles about how we need to write with consistency, and then gone dark on Substack for two and a half months.
That wasn’t planned. I’ve still been writing a lot for my role on Battlefield and working hard on my EMBA, so I’ve been writing, but for quite a while, I couldn’t even open Substack without crying.
I know that the best tactic is generally to write through emotions, but nothing I said felt like I was doing justice.
You see, I started this Substack because of one person. Yes, others had encouraged me to create this page, and yes— I personally thought it would be good for me. But like many things in my life, I needed a push.
And that push came from my Grammy, Jean Hillegass.
Jean was an early adopter of Substack, and encouraged me to start reading on this platform quite awhile ago. She often shared deeply insightful posts with me, and consistently bugged me to start my own page for months before I finally did. Once I did, she commented on almost every post. My articles instigated text and phone conversations and a return to a closeness we hadn’t possessed in a few years. I was overjoyed. I felt so tight with her, so connected.
Then, she died.
In February, she had a sudden heart attack and was gone within days. I was working in LA at the time, and flew a last-minute redeye across the country to Philadelphia to see her. I held her hand as she died, surrounded by loving family.
It was a shock to the system. She was 89 years old, but she hadn’t been suffering serious health issues, as far as any of us (or her) knew. None of my family expected this.
Grammy was an amazing woman who embodied the role of an intellectual, creative powerhouse. I am who I am in many ways because she was a core parental-type figure in my life. She saw, understood, and inspired me in ways I don’t know yet how to articulate.
With her gone, I connected deeply to my roots. I spent time with my parents. I remembered old hobbies. I read old, beloved books. I’ve been doing my best, every day, to live like she would’ve wanted for me— because she knew who I was, possibly, more accurately than anyone else I’ve ever met, and she always wanted the best.
It’s been a few months, but l am still actively processing this loss. It has cut deep, and my creative work from here on out is not going to be the same as it was before she left us. I’m fundamentally different than I was, and I think it’s for the better, but it’s taking me time to adjust. If I’m brutally honest, it still doesn’t feel completely real.
Thank you, Jean. You were the best Grammy I could’ve asked for, and I promise that I’m going to make you proud.
I don’t have anything more eloquent to say at the moment, so instead, I’m going to share the eulogy I wrote and then read aloud at her funeral.
Each of us who knew Jean could easily fill pages with stories of how important she was to us and how much we loved her.
But today, as we celebrate her life, let's focus instead on who she truly was.
Jean was incredibly comfortable in her own company. She often spent her time watching highbrow television or listening to new age classical music… so you might not expect that she once excelled at team sports.
In high school, Jean was on the field hockey team and the women’s basketball team… where she was high scorer!
Her basketball passion was rekindled when WNBA matches started being televised. She thoroughly enjoyed watching games when she could.
And that wasn’t the only sport she followed-- Jean was a big fan of football. Proper football. I mean soccer. She watched many Premier League matches and had a particular fondness for Manchester City, partly because of her son Jeff’s All or Nothing documentary. Though she’d joke the reason was Erling Haaland’s hair. Her football knowledge ran deep.
Jean was an artistic soul with many hobbies. She dabbled in poetry, calligraphy, and crafts. She was a long time member of the Tuesday night craft club at Holy Trinity Church. But her most cherished pursuit was music.
With her husband Jack, she attended countless concerts, ballets, and theater performances, including over thirty years with the Philadelphia Orchestra. Jean also organized musical events here at St. Michael, Jenner’s Pond, and Holy Trinity. More recently, she enjoyed watching livestreamed concerts by the Eastman Wind Ensemble, which her brother Donald conducted for many years. It was special when she finally attended an Eastman concert in person, sitting beside Donald, before he passed away.
It’s no surprise that Jean and Donald were musical— it ran in the family. Their mother was a passionate violinist, and their grandfather played in a mandolin ensemble. Jean was a talented singer, pianist, and flautist, often writing and arranging her own flute solos and piano pieces. She sang in the choir here at St. Michael and at Jenner’s Pond, and often played flute and clarinet duets with Jack.
Their romance began with music-- the two were in marching band together in high school, and grew close when they both made District Band. They made Regional and State Band together too. I remember being delighted by them practicing together at home when I was a kid. They had quite the instrument collection, many of which were Jean’s, including multiple flutes, piccolos, recorders, a harmonica, and even two Irish whistles.
However, Jean’s defining traits were her intelligence, curiosity, inquisitiveness, and empathy. Jean was Google before Google existed. Any time you wanted to know something, she was the person to ask because she likely knew the answer. And if she didn’t, she would be delighted to look it up. Jean was Salutatorian of her high school class and graduated from university a semester early. She had an insatiable hunger for knowledge.
On their many domestic and international travels, Jean was fascinated by not just the historical sights, food, and culture, but the life stories of their tour guides and friends they met along the way.
Jean loved documenting the history of places that were important to her, including St. Michael. She enjoyed documentaries and historical dramas too. I fondly remember that when I stayed over at her house as a kid, she’d let me stay up until 1 am on the condition we would watch Masterpiece Theatre, which she adored.
You may not know this, but Jean loved languages and spoke more than just English. She minored in Spanish at university and later worked as a Spanish teacher. She even went back to school in her forties to take more Spanish courses. She had shelves full of Spanish books and notes… as well as Italian books. Learning Italian had been a lifelong aspiration, and at the time she passed away, she had an impressive 992-day streak on Duolingo.
Jean was a prolific reader and devoured everything she could find. She held a special love for literary short stories and contemporary poetry. In her books, she would check or circle passages that resonated with her… and some had a lot of marks. She’d jot down her favourite quotes on notepads or small scraps of paper, drawing inspiration from everywhere. On the same coffee table, we found wisdom from Plato, Thomas Moore… and Yoda.
Jean found inspiration and delight everywhere. She was introspective and creative and thrived in uncertainty. Though she was a devout Christian who structured most of her social life around the church, she was inspired by philosophy and other world religions and saw them all as compatible parts of a spiritual whole. She had recently read The Power of Joy, a conversation between the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu, and had written copious notes on how their insights had moved her.
Jean was a true progressive, driven by a belief in equality, inclusion, and social justice. She held a deep conviction that our reason for existence is to help and support one another.
In the words of one of her quote notes, “ If you suffered in life and want other people to suffer as you did because ‘you turned out fine,’ you did not in fact turn out fine”.
Jean definitely turned out fine. And the world would be a finer place if we can live in her example.
