I had the honor to live with Tessa in the Westminster house in Washington, DC for 2 years. I had just come back from living abroad for 6 years and felt totally out of place in the city. Tessa was so incredibly welcoming. It was such a breath of fresh air to be under the same roof and sharing life with someone so life-giving and bright. We bonded over both being RAs, passionate about creating a robust community in our group home. I remember the many chats over breakfast, cooking dinner, and late nights. Chats about bup-dates (boy updates), wup-dates (work updates), and general lup-dates (life updates). She was so pivotal in decerning through my many online dates and eventually deciphering if my now husband was "the one". Shortly after I had met my now husband, during the height of COVID, Tessa and I took a 12-hour road trip from DC to Atlanta where my sister picked me up and brought me to Montgomery and Tessa continued her drive down to Tampa. Though the entire journey we talked, laughed, discerned, sought advice, and found ourselves never running out of something to discuss. At the end, we both truly felt like the trip had been a mere few hours instead of the 12 it really was. At one point during COVID, 3 of the 5 girls were moving out of the house at the same time. Tessa and I had the thought of just giving back the home to the owners and moving in together. After prayer and really thinking it through, we both didn’t feel done with fostering the incredible community Westminster holds, so we sent out an all-call. Of course the Lord provided, and we had 3 incredible women fill those rooms and made Tessa’s last year at Westminster even more full.
There are a few people in my life that have impacted the way I view the world and others as much as Tessa has. One of the biggest ways that stands out is how she cheered and empowered the women around her. She saw the light in every single person she met and would draw it out to make them brighter. She would remind me, the women in the house, and everyone women she came in contact with, of their worth, their beauty, their skills, and the way they should see themselves. She would remind us not to settle for guys who didn’t see and value those qualities either. Like the obituary said so well, she made you feel like you were the most important person to be talking to. I picked up on those incredible qualities she held and have tried (although not as successfully as her) to implement them in my life. My life has forever been changed by Tessa and I am eternally grateful.
