Jackie Atkinson

The world lost a wonderful person and I a dear friend when Jackie Atkinson passed away on Saturday, January 5, 2002. She was a kind and gifted lady, and I will miss her terribly.

Jackie was born and raised in England, and she and her family migrated to "the colonies" and settled in the beautiful city of Winnipeg in 1976. She absolutely adored her husband Barry, her children and grandchildren, and all creatures great and small. I'm not going to go into great detail about her life here; I'd rather you visit her web site and peruse her delightful and witty autobiography. I'd prefer to write a little about my personal relationship with her.

I never met Jackie in person; indeed, I only spoke with her on the phone one time. Our entire 3-year+ friendship consisted of exchanging emails, frequently with new artworks or bits of poetry included. I learned from a mutual acquaintance that she had lost her son, and wrote to her to extend my condolences. Something I wrote struck a chord with her and she responded to my email. From then on, I don't think we ever went an entire week without some communication.

She was an incredibly talented woman, whose interests included writing prose and poetry, taking photographs, and creating stunning works of art. She was a self-taught artist, and just as handy with pencil drawings as she was with computer graphics. (The background image on this page is one of hers.) When I was ill recently, she wrote often to offer sage advice, encouragement, and to send me several beautiful "get well" graphics she'd crafted especially for me.

Jackie and I had a lot in common, but our sense of humor was the most noticeable. We both tried not to take anything in this life too seriously. Occasionally, one of us would scribble a few lines of poetry and send it off to the other, who would then add something to it and send it back. We could go on like that for days, and end up with some pretty amusing results. None of these ever got published anywhere (until now); we did it just for fun. We were working on one the week before she died, and I've printed it here just to give you a sense of what a wise and playful person she was. It has no title, and I've put my contributions in italics, so you could see for yourself that she was certainly the superior poet.