I met Jennifer Thieret Westermeyer at the Nice, France train station in the summer of 1990. She was on a train in, I was departing. We spoke for 5 minutes, then it was time for me to board. We promised to write.
We did, and over the years our correspondence tracked the changes of our lives. She married in ’92 and divorced in ’93. Graduated law school in ’95 and married again in ’97. Worked as an attorney and a public defender. I will miss her letters and emails because, whatever the information they contained, they always reminded me of our fond meeting in Europe, and, by extension, the hope it gave me for meeting new friends no matter where I go.
I wish that I could have known Jennifer better than I did. She was proof that it only takes 5 minutes to change someone’s life for the better, and for that and for her, I shall remain grateful.