For the last few days, it seems as though every time I turn around, I see a red-headed woman. At the grocery store. Working out at the gym. Across the way at a restaurant.

These are not coincidences. I am well aware at why this is happening. My mind has been triggered lately, and there is a subtlety in there that is a sad reality.

For my entire life – we are talking six decades – there has been one name and one name only that comes to my mind in regard to “red-headed woman.” It’s an automatic mental response.

Ginger Reeder.

She was probably the first non-family member female I ever knew. Her grandmother lived across the street and we also went to kindergarten together. That was a solid 60 years ago.

In the video of my fifth birthday party, she’s easy to spot — the only girl present and standing right there with a bunch of sweaty boys. Hard to miss that red hair.

I knew her as a child, then as a teenager and then as an adult.

She stopped knowing me about four years ago because of an insidious disease that had taken control of her brain.

You need to know that there are hundreds of people in Shreveport-Bossier – and a few thousands beyond our area — who are hurting these days. We always thought Ginger Reeder would live for a long, long time and always be the same person we had cherished for the longest time. If anyone in our group were going to age gracefully, it was definitely going to be her.

But when frontotemporal dementia takes over, there is no escape. The results are inevitable and on Tuesday morning, she took her last breath.

Ginger Reeder lived a remarkable professional life, which was somehow the least impressive thing to those of us who knew her when we were growing up. All of the tributes will point out her career as the retired Neiman Marcus VP of Corporate Communications. Yes, she was the person behind the crazy, exotic and over-the-top Christmas Collection by Neiman Marcus. She made regular appearances on NBC’s The Today Show to talk about the fantasy gifts.

All you have to do is look at her resume and know this was a life well lived. And that came as a surprise to none of us.

Her passing has been big news in the world of corporate communications. She could stand toe-to-toe with anyone in that realm and leave them all charmed. That’s who she was and what she did as a professional giant in her field.

But for those of us who knew her before she jumped head-first into that world, she was the girl everybody around town seemed to know. She grew up in a prominent Shreveport family, one that lived and promoted Shreveport for decades. Even though they all moved on, their family all stayed connected.

Once Ginger Reeder became your friend, there was no turning back from that. And that worked on both sides of the gender aisle. Whether male or female, however you wanted to define friend, she met all the criteria.

There is no better word to describe her than beloved. Forget what she accomplished in the business world; the lives she touched in a personal way as a loyal friend for decades upon decades is beyond remarkable.

Ginger Reeder was just so comfortable to all of us. We always knew what we were getting when we’d see her, whether it had been six weeks, six months or six years since the last time.

And the fact that she had that instantly recognizable red hair was such a great part of her personality. As if she needed anything else to stand out.

A few years ago, I recorded a lengthy phone conversation with her to get some perspective on a long feature story that I still haven’t gotten around to writing. Not only did she provide great insight to an event that happened 50 years ago, but she offered additional resources in an effort to help me out.

Of course she did.

Luckily, I still have the recording of our conversation. Sadly, it was the last one we ever had.

A few months later I found out she had a disease that I had never heard of and that she wouldn’t be coming back to us.

Losing friends is never easy for any of us. But to so many people, this was a truly remarkable friend who lived a truly remarkable life.

Contact JJ at johnjamesmarshall@yahoo.com