She was the kind of woman who understood, fundamentally, that comfort is the enemy of everything worth doing, that real power doesn’t come from being liked but from being necessary when everything’s falling apart.
In the art world she knew every hustle, spotted every inflated price, every lazy shortcut passed off as craftsmanship. Storekeepers saw her coming and straightened up like school kids when the principal walks in. She had that quality that cuts through bullshit like a hot knife through margarine, that made mediocrity feel like the moral failing it actually is. She demanded what she paid for, what she was promised, what she deserved, and somehow that made her the problem.
But when the wheels came off, when someone’s life hit the guardrail and started flipping end over end, that’s when she became essential. Crisis stripped away all the social theater and revealed her for what she was: the person you needed. The one who showed up. The one who knew what to do when nobody else did, who had the spine to make the hard call, to sit with someone’s pain without flinching, to tell them what they needed to hear instead of what would make them feel better.
She was the raw material of greatness, hers, yes, but more importantly the kind she forged in others. Because she never let them settle. Never let them be less than they could be. And that kind of love doesn’t come wrapped in softness.