When I think of people who are genuinely kind and smart, Rachel is always one who comes to mind.
She was one of the people who interviewed me for CNN and was more than generous in helping me settle in the role. At work, Rachel showed me how to be articulate and how to represent our team in the newsroom. And how to be firm, because otherwise, we'd get tons of pitches for animal videos.
It would take over a year of copies, puns and Slack exchanges before we would meet each other in person.
During that London trip, we had dinner and drinks and caught up like it wasn't the first time. Later that week, I was planning dinner with another colleague, and Rachel asked, very politely, if she could join too. Of course she didn't have to. That evening turned out to be one full of laughter and friendship.
One of the things I knew I'd miss when I left CNN was our team's daily handover and banter. Sometime during the pandemic, I thought we were going to be teammates again, but that wasn't meant to be.
When Marc passed and a lot of things were a blur, I remember getting a call for a delivery to my apartment. It was a cocktail set, from one of the best bars in Singapore (maybe even the world), from Rachel. It would have been nice to share a drink with CNN people who knew Marc, but the thought from Rachel was the next best thing.
Rachel and I have never lived in the same city, but we have met in different places over the years — Menlo Park, Singapore, New York and of course, London. It's always just nice to catch up on all things theater, news, tech and life, usually over wine. I'm not sure when we'll get to do that again, but maybe we should just find ourselves in another city to add to our growing list.
PS: While I have better photos of Rachel, I thought "Beyond Cats" was more her.