It is rare for me to leave the office before the paper has been proofed “on the page” and the presses are rolling. But Thursday was one of the rare days that I planned to leave work early, and I was secretly so glad to have some place to go.

It was happenstance, but my leaving early meant that I didn’t have to watch Jill Prevett leave the office on her last day as a Star-News employee.

Jill was already a veteran when life brought me to Andalusia more than eight years ago. Her knowledge of the local market and real estate was more than helpful as we looked for a new home and got settled in.

She had elementary-aged children then. It’s hard for me to grasp that, come fall, she’ll have two children in high school. One of the things I’ll miss most about not seeing her every day is her stories about Peyton and Lane.

We soon learned we had a common interest in art. Though we often agreed on the pieces we liked, Jill had one up on me. While I was thinking, “Where could I hang that?,” Jill’s thoughts ran more toward, “I could paint/build/do that myself.”

I learned not to be shocked when she said things like, “I knocked out a wall last night. It needed to be done,” or tackled some other project most of us would hire someone else to do.

When her dad was diagnosed with ALS, commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, Jill was stoic. I think each of us learned something about life just from hearing her stories about how Jimmy kept living his to the fullest even when that cruel disease kept knocking him down.

This past week, as she faced the task of telling her many clients she was moving on, she said it felt like she was breaking up with 100 people. I have no doubt that many of her clients shared that sentiment.

But life is coming full circle. The person I depended upon for real estate advice is going to work in real estate again. She planned to take a few days off between her last and first days, but she was being asked to show houses before she could even close up shop here. I have no doubt that she will be as awesome at Courson and Hopkins as she has been at The Star-News.

She has promised to be “on call” to help us in the transition, and to “call” when Lane does something funny. I hope the phone rings often. As in so many other areas, she has again shown us the right way to do things.

I am more than proud of and for her, but I’m going to miss that girl like crazy. She’s the best.