I owe her my life - Ellen Pence z"l

My heart is breaking because the woman I owe my life to has left this world.

There must be thousands of women who owe Ellen their lives, because she devoted her life to fighting against violence against women, and to training women who worked with battered women. You can see a video of her talking about it here

But you have to take 20 plus years off her to see Ellen as I saw her, yet lose none of the sureness and none of the humor.

Ellen was an amazing teacher, and she taught us how to teach. She talked about Paulo Friere, and about what it meant to empower women in the way we taught. Listen to the video - she is teaching about teaching by listening. Every day I get up to teach, Ellen is with me.

But the reason I owe her my life is that she was the person who told me to come out. I was working with women all the time but living a straight life, and Ellen, in a warm, joking, absolutely certain way, told me I needed to stop. She told me, with a smile, that if I got married to a man, I'd eventually be divorced, because I would meet a woman and fall in love. I said, "will she have glasses?"

That was in the fall of 1987.

The rest is history.

Ellen, you are not gone. Your inspiration lives on in me every day, as I know it does in your son, in your partner, and in all the people whose lives you touched.