Farewell to a Friend

“Why can't we get all the people together in the world that we really like and then just stay together?  I guess that wouldn't work.  Someone would leave.  Someone always leaves.  Then we would have to say good-bye.  I hate good-byes…” --- Charles M. Schulz

I too hate good-byes.   I hate them so much that I have rarely written a column or an article about the passing of a colleague, a family member, a friend, in nearly 50 years in journalism.

But a person of exceptional wit, grace, intelligence and talent has left us.  Her passing leaves a void not only in our profession but in our hearts.  And I can’t let her go without saying good-bye.

Janette Williams was a familiar byline to readers of this paper and to the newsmakers of the community but for those of us who worked with her, she was so much more.   She was a teacher, a confidant, an invaluable resource, a popular leader, a joy to work with.

Most important, she was a friend.   But it could have been otherwise.

I first met Janette when I was hired as city editor of the Pasadena Star-News in 2001.   I had just finished a 33-year stint with the Los Angeles Times and was entering a new and different operation not knowing what to expect.

I learned that Janette, an assistant city editor, had also applied for the job.  It didn’t take me very long to see that she was a formidable presence and that I had better put things right with her if I was going to survive.

We had lunch.  I was apprehensive.  She was warm, gracious and supportive.  Was it a facade?   No, she was too classy for that.  She was clearly more interested in producing a good newspaper than indulging in the palace intrigue that is office politics.

Early on, I relied on her utterly and completely.  We quickly became a team, a couple of veterans trying to manage a staff that was eager and talented but young and inexperienced.

We laughed that we were the oldest editing team on earth but it was good that we had a few years on us because it was sometimes like raising children, equal parts sheer joy and scraped knees.

She eventually became city editor of the Star-News when I was made associate editor. There were no other candidates considered. It was a job she rightly deserved and wore with pride.

Young reporters were attracted to Janette because of her devotion to the craft of journalism and her incredible work ethic. 

This was a woman who lost her husband to cancer, then survived breast cancer while raising two children.   No challenge was too difficult for her to overcome.

She was literate and sophisticated, an expert on all things British having been born and raised in Scotland.  She had half the staff, including me, reading British literature in our spare time.

Indeed, she never abandoned her sense of British propriety.   I once referred to her in a staff meeting as a “work horse.”  Later, in no uncertain terms, she upbraided me, saying that it was no way to talk about a lady.  She said it with a laugh.  But I never did it again.

She was, of course, endearingly human.   She had a habit of losing things:  her keys, her purse, her glasses which more often than not were held together with a paper clip.   Her desk was a repository of discarded press releases and other odds and ends, many of indeterminate age.   She lived most of her life without a cell phone or a home computer which she perceived as nuisances.

Aside from her grandchildren, Janette had three loves:   The British Broadcasting System, which she watched religiously; the New York Times crossword puzzle which she completed on her lunch hour; and the Rose Parade.

The latter was sorely tested some years back when she was assigned to do an interview with the parade’s grand marshal.  It turned out to be Kermit the Frog.

Unfortunately, there is no record of that story.   But knowing Janette, I’m betting that she produced the most compelling and well crafted interview with a hand puppet in the history of print.

I retired from editing about six years ago.   Since then, I have gone to the Pasadena Star-News offices every week to write this column.   I tell people I do it because I like to feed off the energy of the newsroom.

That is only partially true.  I also did it so I could visit with Janette, to get her feedback on my work, to talk about our families, our lives past, present and future.

The last time I saw her I was about to leave for a week to visit friends out of state.   She uncharacteristically gave me a long hug before I left.   It was to be our final farewell.

I’m not sure how I will react at the sight of her empty desk next to mine.   Misty eyed might be a good bet.

So I will seek solace in words, the stuff our profession, in this case the wisdom of Thornton Wilder: 

“The greatest tribute to the dead is not grief but gratitude.”