I wanted to take a moment to reflect on the passing of Andrea Collins-Smith. Andrea’s son Jesse is one of my advisees at SLA, and he’s an amazing, kind, wonderful kid who I look forward to seeing every day. All year long, he’s dealt with the illness of his mother, and for the past several months, we had a sense it probably wasn’t going to end well. Through it all, Jesse handled it with a grace that few adults would have. There were tough times for him throughout this year, as we all would expect, and there were times when I had to remind him just how well he was holding up, given all that his family was going through. As the father of two boys, I can say that I’d be thrilled if Jakob and Theo ended up as good and kind-hearted and thoughtful as Jesse is. His mom always took a justifiable pride about the amazing spirit and sense that her son has.

Andrea defied stereotypes, and she enjoyed doing that, I think. She was, as her blog is titled, a punk rock mommy. The first time I met her, she and her husband were sitting in the second row in Meredith Elementary School as I presented to the 8th grade class about this school we were starting. They were the only parents in an auditorium full of 12 year olds, and they were the toughest audience I think I had on the recruitment trail that planning year. Afterward, Andrea came up and introduced herself to me and had some of the toughest and on-point questions about SLA that I remember getting from anyone anywhere that year. She wanted a school for her son that would not try to put him into a box, but rather would allow him to be himself. I think there was a moment in that conversation where we both realized we were talking about education the same way, and Jesse, of course, did come to SLA. And, of course, Jesse ended up in my advisory.

The biggest mistake that you could make was to underestimate her… to assume that "punk" and "pierced" meant… well… anything negative you might think it meant. She was a smart, dedicated woman who was beloved by her friends and her family. She took so much joy from being a mom, and — as she was dying — she made sure that her oldest son was set up to go to Rochester in the fall, her two twin boys going into high school got full scholarships to St. Joe’s Prep, and her daughter got a full scholarship to Penn Charter. We at SLA get to keep Jesse, and we’re a better community for his presence. (Clay is still too young for Andrea to have set up his education, but he’s got a whole lot of folks looking out for him.)

Over the past two years, Andrea and I had countless phone conversations, a bunch of emails, four "official" parent-advisor-student conferences, and a bunch of unofficial conferences since then, and part of this blog entry is to say that I’ll miss those conferences. Andrea was a presence, and she was a fierce advocate for her child, and no matter if Jess was having a good quarter or perhaps a less-than-good quarter, I always looked forward to the conversations. I’m going to miss her for the two years we’ve got left with Jesse.

And Jesse is going to be o.k. He is his mother’s son, and the best thing throughout this entire process is that he could let his mother go with no regrets about his relationship with her. They were so very close, and he has known every moment of his life that he was fiercely loved. And he knows that she passed knowing how much she meant to him, and they really did — even before she fell ill — tell each other that every day.

And in addition to the family and friends she leaves behind, let that be Andrea Collins-Smith’s legacy. The people she loved always knew. Because of the way she lived her life, there is more love and care in the world. So today, be sure to tell the people in your life you love that you love them. Tell them that a punk-rock mommy who can’t do that anymore reminded you to.