Gifted Mentors: I Am Because Barbara Was

Some friendships are quiet. Some are wild. Some sneak up slowly. Some are incredibly fast, assisted by the Universe in matchmaking.

And some—like the one I shared with Barbara—arrive like an ancient memory. Like recognition. Like soul meeting soul across time.

There was no small talk. No need to prove. Just a click. A knowing. A yes that echoed through every cell. We could anticipate each other’s needs and finish each other’s sentences from the word “go.”

She was one of my dearest friends for ten years. We laughed easily and called each other “twin sisters raised a mile and thirty years apart.”

Barbara was my anam cara—my soul friend. I have been fortunate in my lifetime to have several, but she was the first and deepest imprint. In the Celtic tradition, an anam cara is someone who sees your essence. Who holds your soul with reverence. Who walks beside you, not in front of or behind, but with. Always with.

In my life, when I have been called to be a mentor or model (or coach), she is the “lineage” I belong to first. I have trained and worked with some famous (and less famous, but amazing) life and creativity coaches. Because of Barbara I was “coachy” long before coach training crossed my path. Barbara showed me an example (and allowed me to witness many examples) of what happens when you draw someone out of themselves, long before coaching was a mainstream thing. She was a teacher, an artist, a writer, a mother, a wife, a daughter and granddaughter, a mentor, a standard-setter, a hell of a decorator and innovator. A thinker, a lifelong student, a multi-passionate Scorpio with the mirror moon to my own. We even looked a bit like sisters, though she was much taller than me (and was in my opinion the more beautiful one).

We had innate mirror essence like cats do, and were frequently photographed with the same expression or the same posture, while not looking at one another. It was eerie.

I cherished the time we spent together. I am still grateful for how much of my artwork she bought when I was a student working three jobs. I was also blessed to be the one who was the closest mirror for her wholeness. The one who got to be her actual friend in real life, for many years, to share so many slices of some absurdly delicious dessert and incredibly strong coffee and smack-talk for hours.

We started out working on a student literary arts publication: she was the faculty advisor, I was a contributor from freshman year on, eventually the upstart junior who assumed I’d be in charge the next year, after all I was “the” writer of the class and had a two-hour block in honors Art.

The first lesson Barbara gave me was that it wasn’t a question of being in charge of “things” so much as being in charge of what. She appointed the lovely Stephanie as editor-in-chief—and that was the right choice. That job was tracking permissions and people and spreadsheets… and unimpeachable thoroughness. Stephanie was the right solution implementer and follow-through for that role.

As for me, Barbara appointed me creative director, so I could partner with her on a vision she had for the issue, and she trusted me to select the written and artistic contributions that best reflected it….then spin up several of my own to complement and fill the gaps. She taught me calligraphy and the magic of a light table (though we did move to desktop publishing that year). We won a national award; she was appointed to the national board of reviewers. Magic, indeed. A quantum leap. Because our relationship was intense, magnetic and nurturing to the team, it drew in the very best of everyone around us.

I still pattern my favorite working relationships after that one. My side, anyway. If it sticks, I stick with it. Like, almost for life. It’s a code.

Two Gifted Women. One Soul Language.

There is a strange loneliness in being gifted. Not everyone can hold your depth.
Not everyone can follow your thought spirals, your paradoxes, your ache to make meaning out of everything.

But Barbara? Barbara didn’t just get me. She mirrored me.

I was, at barely eighteen, blessed with a whole, wild, beautiful, actualized woman who took me by my little face and said, “You are just like looking in a mirror.” And I would say, “I hope so.” What did I know at 18, or 21, or 25? Despite the age difference there was never a mothery-daughtery nature to our friendship, it was just “at 100 miles an hour,” as her husband observed in her eulogy….like everything else she (or I) used to do.

Our conversations were portals. We didn't speak in lines—we spoke in galaxies. Or in wordlessness. Expressive eyes.

In symbols and shadow and unspeakable truths we trusted each other to acknowledge.

We’d cry without apology. We’d dream without limits. We’d hold each other accountable to our brilliance—and our tenderness.

She Mentored Me in the Most Sacred Way

Not by telling me what to do.Not by giving me answers. But by holding space for the version of me I was still too scared (or really, too ignorant of) to become.

Barbara saw my highest expression—and my most tender fractures—and loved me across that spectrum. That is the kind of mentoring gifted women need: Witnessing. Mirroring. Fierce compassion. Someone who will say, “Yes, your gifts are real. Yes, your pain is valid. And yes, you’re meant for more than survival.”

She taught me to claim my fire. To trust the rhythms of my own unfolding. To honor my complexity not as a burden—but as holy design.

Together, We Are a Constellation

In a world that often misunderstands women like us—too intense, too curious, too idealistic, too much—we have carved out sacred space for each other. We were mirrors of possibility. We were midwives of each other’s becoming. I was coming of age, she was coming to midlife with her own transitions (new beginnings and painful endings).

When the world felt too loud, too shallow, too far away from what matters—we’d remind each other of who we really are. She took more than few late night phone calls when I was about to drop out of law school and freaking. right. out. as to what that was ever going to mean.

Friendship like this is not distraction. It is sanctuary.

Thank You, Barbara.

For being my anam cara, holding my soul without flinching. For offering your wisdom without agenda, and walking beside me, not as guru or fixer—but as friend. For all your red calligraphy marker hearts, imprinted onto so many cards and into my mind long before the world had emojis. I am endlessly grateful to have walked that much of my path with you. It was enduring magic. I miss you.