Brent Ganger

She believed in second chances.

She believed tomorrow could be better than today.

She believed that kindness mattered, and she lived that belief.

Even when things were hard, Ney looked for the light.

And if she couldn't find it, she became the light for somebody else.

It was the excessively ordinary things that made Ney so beautiful.

There are billions of people who now know her name, and it would be so easy to fall into the false belief the great heroic things are required to overcome difficult things in the world.

But as Tolkien wrote, it is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay, small acts of kindness and love.

That's why the image of Dandelions feels so right.

People try to pull them up, overlook them, dismiss them, but they keep coming back, stronger, brighter, spreading seeds of hope everywhere they land.

Renee planted those seeds in all of us.

In her children, in her family,

and friends, coworkers, and people who maybe didn't even realize they needed her light at the time.

And sunlight.

Sunlight doesn't ask for recognition.

It just gives.

It warms.

It nurtures.

It helps things grow.

Renee did that for us.