Sunday, March 18, 2012

Remembering a friend

I woke today to some very sad news for those of us in the Texas region. One of our beloved beading sisters, Janie Warnick, passed away on Thursday after battling cancer. I met Janie about 7 or 8 years ago at the Shreveport Bead Retreat. She was tiny in stature, but huge in heart and personality. She made me feel right at home at my first retreat, and we became fast friends trading silly stories and barbs. Over the years we laughed until my ribs hurt over things like her annual efforts to launch herself into the absurdly high beds at the retreat hotel, and her insistence that she would be a perfect assassin because who would suspect a tiny old grandma would be a stealthy killer?

Janie was the kind of generous woman who would literally give you the beads off her tray because you said you liked the color. She loved to share her beading knowledge, and you can find some of her free tutorials here. She called one of her beading discoveries "The Gift", but in truth, Janie was the true gift. I will miss her lively banter and sparkling eyes full of mischief always. She's one of those people I would never have met were it not for the way our beading world crosses generations and I am grateful, lucky, and enriched to have known her. Farewell, my dear friend.

4 comments:

  1. A very sweet dedication to a really nice lady.

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  2. Thank you for memorializing her so well. I just spent one retreat with Janie, but was very glad to know her.

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  3. Oh no! I am so sorry to hear this Jill! She was truly a wonderful lady. So loving and giving. I had the pleasure of spending time with her a few few retreats and learning from her. I even still have a few of her kits. I was lucky to ave known her.

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  4. I know, Janet - I'm still off kilter with this news. I truly adored Janie and I didn't realize she was ill until it was too late. I'm sad I never got to say goodbye. But knowing Janie, she would have preferred it the way it turned out. She knew I loved her!

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