Where Are You, Julie?

We worked remotely, which is a wonderful thing, but not without its challenges. A lack of social life is not the least of these. But as far as actual work goes, one of the biggest drawbacks is the inability to turn to the person at the desk beside you and say, “Here’s the issue I’m having. What do you advise?” Julie and I worked closely together, and the relationship we cultivated was important in solving both these issues.

Julie was smart, funny, fiercely protective, and we became friends. Not religious, she believed in G-d, saw His Hand in every tomato she cultivated from her garden, in every flower she planted. We shared that, along with a wish to ensure that the content we were publishing — for inner city school kids — was elevated. Was our definition of “elevated” different? Sure. But you’d be surprised; Julie was furious when one of the stories we were working on had a child referring to his aunt without an honorific. “What kind of people do we want our children to grow up to be?” she protested.

After our company was sold and its values executed a wide left turn, making it impossible for us to stay in our jobs, Julie and I still kept up. We encouraged one another in our job searches, forwarded interesting opportunities along, and acted as each other’s sounding boards when it felt like something about one organization or another might not be adding up.

Julie would talk about her children constantly, and she expressed an interest in mine, delighting with me in each new addition to my family. She sent me pictures of her kids (and her chickens) and shared all the details of her daughter’s wedding. We’d email a couple of times a year, picking up right where we left off, and we had some memorably long phone conversations.