Celebrating Gigi

DEBORAH CROMBIE:  As some of you here on the blog may know, my dear friend, and a regular member of our Jungle Red community, Gigi Norwood, died unexpectedly on September 3rd. 

Gigi and I had been friends for thirty years. Her late husband, Warren Norwood, was my writing teacher when I was struggling with those early drafts of what would become A SHARE IN DEATH.  I met Gigi through Warren, but she was a writer as well. For quite a few years we were part of the same writer's group. We met up in Fort Worth in those days, as it was the midway point between where I lived and where Gigi and Warren lived, west of Fort Worth. After Warren passed away in 2005, Gigi decided she needed to be closer to her new job in Dallas, and that she needed a nearby support system. Eventually, she found a house only two blocks from us in McKinney. I can only hope I provided the support system--she was certainly mine.

She got me hooked on fountain pens and leather journals. I got her hooked on the British ballroom dancing show Strictly Come Dancing, and the local bakery, where we had a standing date every Sunday morning. (We called it our "church.") Along with the addiction to pens and journals, Gigi gave me a number of books on "how to improve your handwriting," but I'm afraid the advice didn't take!

Gigi was passionate about music, and she loved her job as Operations Manager for the Dallas Winds. Nothing delighted her more than introducing someone to an artist she admired--just this time last year she took me to my first Keb' Mo' concert. She loved cars, too, especially her Ford Mustang, and I was always her car-shopping ridealong (and enabler.) This was the day she bought her first Mustang, encouraged by me! (Another would follow.)

Last year she added a Bronco Sport (keeping the current Mustang!) and was doing her best to convince me to follow suit. 

But more than anything, she loved her dogs and cats, especially her beloved border collies, and gave much time and energy to our local border collie rescue groups. She fostered dogs, and I couldn't begin to count the number of dogs that passed through her care and went on to find loving homes with adopters.

We talked every day, trading book chat and gossip, writing critiques and political opinions, but also the sort of boring everyday stuff that forms the backbone of a friendship. 

You may remember that Gigi was not only a regular commenter here on Jungle Red but was also a guest several times on the blog. She was a talented writer (as G. S. Norwood) in many genres, but it was her Deep Ellum novellas that I loved the most. After she died, it was a few days before I realized to my dismay that there would be no more Ms. Eddy stories.

She had so many plans for her recent retirement. Quilting, house projects, gardening (we shared the love of antique roses and native plants), but top of her list was spending more time on her stories and novels, and working with her sister Jan Gephardt on the publishing company they started together, Weird Sisters Publishing. 

She loved art and tea and handmade pottery--oh, so much pottery! If there was an award for number of mugs owned, Gigi would have won it! I did manage to sneak in one piece of English porcelain, the Emma Bridgewater Bonfire Night mug I gave her for her birthday last year. (She shared her birthday with Guy Fawkes night.) And if you knew her, you'll have an idea how delighted she was that her birthday was going to fall on election day this year!

Gigi was such a big part of my life that it will be a long time before a day goes by that I don't think of her dozens of times. She will be missed on so many days, in so many ways, not just by me and by her family, but by all the many, many people whose lives she touched with her warmth, wit, and generousity. 

I count us lucky, here on Jungle Red, to have shared in a bit of it.