I met Jen Delaney in early September of 1991, on a Friday night. I was walking down our dorm hallway when I heard “Cecilia” by Simon and Garfunkel blasting—loudly. At that point in my life, the only other people I knew who listened to that song were my parents. So naturally, I rushed into a stranger’s room yelling about how much I loved it.

And there she was: a girl in what I called “hippie Jesus shoes”—later identified as Birkenstocks, which she helped me buy for myself—standing at an ironing board at 11:30 at night. That was my introduction to Jen.

She had spent the summer at Girl Scout camp and couldn’t stop talking about how much she loved it. And immediately, she started teaching me things—about camping, about music (REM, Indigo Girls, Dar Williams, They Might Be Giants), and about loving the outdoors. She once came back from an outing club hike so injured that I had to force her to go to the ER. She ended up on crutches for a month, insisting she was “fine.” If you knew Jen, that “checks out” to quote my teenagers.

She showed a bunch of Maine kids how to explore Boston. She loved her family home in Maine, and I came to love it too. From day one, she taught me how to be happy with who we are, and how to find joy in small things. And she lived that for fifty and a few years. She loved to dance and be silly, even when no one else was ready. And I can say confidently: we were not good dancers. But we were enthusiastic.

As a young adult, Jen adored her family. She told endless stories—motorcycle rides on the back of Bob’s bike, her “little brother” Bobby who remains nine years old in my mind, visiting her mom at the nursing home across the road, and stories of Jess. She even endured a Dave Matthews Band concert with me—not for the music, but so we could tailgate with Jess and Ryan.

Her family was vast—holiday parties with both sides, names I learned over years. I kind of hero-worshiped Aunt Meg. Aunt Danny let us crash at her place once. Aunt Maureen—from Springfield, not the other Aunt Maureen—managed to travel from Springfield. Many uncles whose names allude me 30 years later, my apologies, The Wildes, the Olivers—she spoke of all of you with pride.

In the spring of sophomore year, we ran toward each other in excitement—we had both decided to spend a semester out west. I went for a semester in a normal dorm. She found a year-long wilderness program in Missoula, Montana. Of course she got in. This was NOT summer camp. They sent her into the wilderness for weeks, including solo time.

She came home appreciating minimalism and taught me skills I didn’t know I needed. Years of traveling together meant she taught me to wash my clothes in Nalgene water bottles. And my family still mocks my camping rule that each person gets one square of paper towel to wash dishes. One. No more.  I’ve been informed we aren’t in a papertowel shortage – but it was a Jen rule – so it sticks.

Watching her be unapologetically herself was one of the most formative lessons of my young adulthood. She loved what she loved. She didn’t care about trends. She believed in having a few things and keeping them for years—and she was proud of that.

Back in the days of mixtapes and obscure B-sides, Jen was my source of all things cool. We embroidered jeans at 12:30 Saturday nights and listened to early REM. She cared deeply about where things came from, the companies behind them. She had big feelings and big passions. She didn’t always know how to channel them—but imagine what the world would be if we all cared that much.  She was fun, up for any hairbrained idea I’d throw, and funny.  Max wanted to make sure that someone share that Jen was funny.  I will spend the rest of my life keeping track of silly jokes, or goofy things that would just make us laugh forever.

After college, when teaching jobs were scarce, she got one about forty minutes from mine. We started a tradition of hiking Tuckerman’s Ravine, Mount Washington on Easter. Those years were isolating and dark in many ways, tucked on the cold coast of Maine, but we had each other. We talked on the phone constantly, learned to knit and weave to survive winters, and without ever discussing it, we both knew we needed out.

Then she called: Baltimore City needed teachers. She was going. She moved from a town of 6,000 people to Baltimore—a place she’d never even visited. I moved to New Hampshire.

We were “telephone people.” Calls started when rates dropped at 7 p.m. She never questioned her decision. She found her favorite coffee shop, green spaces, and an “interesting” apartment over a restaurant. I don’t remember the names of any of these places now, but I remember her joy in them.

We discovered IKEA together, and being “Bob Delaney’s daughter,” she found a way to cram enormous boxes into her car. We assembled everything. She stained it later—of course.  I seem to recall she did actually stain it about 15 years later too.

We started taking road trips: Wyoming, South Dakota, Utah, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, the Catskills, sections of the Long Trail in Vermont. We spent more time in the car than at the destinations, but the car became its own destination—loud singing, laughing, and the kind of friendship that shapes your life.

I called her last year to thank her. Because without her, the homebody in me wouldn’t have seen half the places I’ve seen. She said, “I know. And you always took two days before you appreciated the experience—but you went.”

We kept adventuring. We kept our Easter tradition of hiking Tuckerman’s—now with her dog. And she kept adventuring in Baltimore: biking to Glenmount School, getting a scooter instead of driving, going to every kind of festival within a ninety-minute radius, especially the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival.

One day she called and she’d realized Baltimore was home. I said, “Yeah, I know.”  It had been from the beginning.   Baltimore gave her everything she loved: walkability, environmental consciousness, solitude when she wanted it, people when she didn’t, and community everywhere.

Jen loved people. And people loved her. We would go hiking, and strangers would pass me with a polite hello. Not a minute later I’d hear them sharing their life story with Jen. I once asked how she did that. She shrugged and said, “I just said hello.” But everywhere she went—including here—people opened around her.

Our lives continued to intersect. We met our husbands around the same time. We had our children in the same years, seven hours apart, with no planning, just parallel lives.

She adventured with her children the same way she adventured with everyone: fully and joyfully. She carried them in backpacks to festivals and fruit farms. She biked with both kids to the farmers’ market. She drove them from Baltimore to Maine every summer—packing everything into her little blue car with pride. The fiercely independent girl I met at 18 never flinched at the chaos of two toddlers. She simply made it work—and loved that she didn’t need to bring her whole house to do it.

I am not the person to tell the full story of Jen’s life in Baltimore. I heard about it, but I didn’t live it with her, the way so many of you did. But I do know this: Jen loved Baltimore. She found her purpose here, her people here, and her community here.

When I think about Jen, I think about her laugh, her independence, her overflowing love for her kids, her curiosity, her passion, her ability to turn strangers into friends, and her absolute commitment to living life on her own terms.

She was my friend for more than three decades. She shaped who I am. She taught me to find joy in small things, to care about what matters, to pack light, to dance terribly but enthusiastically, to love fiercely, and to keep adventuring.  She was my person.

Jen lived every bit of her life with heart. And the world is different—quieter, dimmer—without her in it. But we have stories, music, memories of the kindness she sparked, and the adventures she will inspire.

Her mother recently shared that Jen earned the Girl Scout Gold Award in high school. I looked it up again, and the Girl Scouts describe Gold Award recipients like this—and I quote:

“Gold Award Girl Scouts are rock stars, role models, and real-life heroes… who use everything they’ve learned to fix a problem in their community or make a lasting change in their world.”

I’m just going to leave that right there—along with the fact that a picture of Jen Delaney could sit beside that definition without a single edit.