Beautiful inside and out. A warrior for women. An activist for justice. We lost Cecile Richards yesterday. It is a great loss, but her impact on the lives of so many citizens will live on forever.

We first met in the late 1980s after I went to the National Audubon Society to head up the human population and environment program. Cecile was working for the Turner Foundation and made it possible for us to get an important grant for the program. Over the years we would run into each other at various events. Both of us had grown up in Texas and had taken belief in women and their ability to make moral decisions to a more vast audience.

And of course, we had politics in common. Her political efforts at and after Planned Parenthood were non-stop. Serious conversations about training and promoting women in public service were a keystone for both of us. While I would leave the D.C. area and go West, Cecile would use her platforms at the national level. She was still active until very recently.

May all of us who knew her, carry her banner for justice forward. She will be still with us.