Few of you reading this will have met her. If you did, savor it, there is no more.
Just weeks after leaving her southern California home of more than 30 years for a sparkling, new life with her dazzlingly talented daughter, Tamara, tea-drinking code wizard son-in-law Sean, newly graduated designer and grandson Scott (so proud, she was) and youngest grandson "he who will amaze thee" Kyle - Sigrid Michelsen died in San Antonio last night for reasons none of us may ever fully understand and forever not want to accept.
Sigrid was an exceptional creative force who grew up in Kensington, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, DC. The middle of five children, Sigrid was known as the "Artistic One," creating artwork since she was old enough to hold a pencil. There were classes in college, but it wasn't until her adult years that she developed her skill in a formal way, first with oils then exploding with ideas after switching to watercolor.
This medium unleashed a complex nuance of expression she'd sought for so long. Then came an avalanche of new works: landscapes, seascapes, portraits and water creatures, all filled with the delicacy and depth she delighted in giving. Ending her first career as a financial controller Sigrid embraced her lifetime dream of being a full time artist. Influences from visits to the beaches in the Outer Banks of North Carolina began to surface. A fascination with light, water and clouds dominated.
Forget all her art, her husband, and her kid, if I had but one word that could envelope this woman's existence on any day, in any place, with any person, on any subject, it would be "sweetness."
Decades divorced from husband John Baechtel, author and former senior editor at Hot Rod Magazine, who makes Mike Cook's Land Speed Events look good on the world wide web, anyone who knew this pair was impressed that they remained good friends through the years after divorcing -- deeply committed to raising their daughter. If John and Sigrid did nothing else right in this life, they got it perfect with their kid, never playing one against the other. Because of this simple, inviolate pact, Tamara grew into a marvelous lady and mother of her own.
The tears are welling, I am drained in this telling and shocked by her sudden passing in so many ways.
