When the YWCA of Greater Atlanta honored Joanna Adams as its 2014 Woman of the Year, she strode to the podium as our keynote speaker and spoke – as she always did – with confidence, authority, and a knowing that ran through every particle of her being. She addressed racism, sexism, poverty, war, hunger, inequalities, and other societal woes.
It was clear that Joanna was the person you would want in the proverbial foxhole with you and the one who would walk fearlessly, leading the way for the rest of us, through a fiery, rioting mob.
One of the things that was most striking about her speech that day, however, was how she disarmed the audience with her sense of humor and lack of false modesty. Recently retired (although, not really!), she stood before nearly a thousand people and said, “I’m old. But I ain’t dead yet.”
Joanna was one of those people who you thought would not, could not die. Even though she had grown frail and a little stooped over the past few years, dealing with one health issue after another, she was still a force. And when an energy like hers begins to be diminished, it creates a new fragility in us all.
Although I thought about her almost daily, I delayed going to visit after she and her beloved husband Al moved into a high-rise retirement home in Buckhead. Maybe others felt the same way, or maybe I am the only one who was too cowardly to see her in a phase of life where she was no longer walking barefoot across the beach, throwing back her head in laughter, fighting to provide a megaphone to the voiceless, standing firm against the pompous, the arrogant, greed and evil.
As so often happens, I deeply regret not having one more conversation with Jo, one more chance to let her know what she meant to me and my family. Those good intentions that pave the path to hell are lined with wishes that I had held her hand, as she had done for countless others at the most tragic and most euphoric times of their lives. That I had seen that smile once more before she died of a massive brain bleed at Piedmont Hospital this past Friday afternoon, Aug. 7, 2026.
Joanna had many loves, with dogs and cats right up at the top of a long list. When she came to dinner, nothing delighted her more than my mother’s old dog Buster Brown jumping in Joanna’s lap and snoring there throughout the visit.
She adored and admired her children and grandchildren, of course, and she thrilled to speak of them. She also loved the Presbyterian Church, members of her many congregations, the city of Atlanta, St. Simons Island, God and Country. But the America she loved was not the one hailed by jingoism. It was country dirt roads, humble homes, worn hymnals, and the voices of both small and grand church choirs. It was the America of hard work, civility, and kindness that she grew up knowing and shared with tens of thousands through her books, essays, sermons, prayers and jokes.
Her greatest love, though, was for Al Adams, her devoted partner, friend and husband for decades.
I heard her say once that she and Al had reinvented their lives together many times over the course of their long marriage. Their union wasn’t static but rather was nurtured and well-kept. I loved the way that Al looked at Joanna. It wasn’t a cloying look, or sentimental. It was a look of gratitude. Pride. Respect. Sweet affection. They both knew that what they had was rare and not to be taken for granted or squandered. It was holy. Pure. Built on faith, friendship, laughter, and hope, even in the face of pain, loss, age and decline.
Joanna always asked about my soul, my spiritual life, and Lord knows she needed to. Some of us have spotty, splotchy faiths that are not always tended well like hers. She, though, was a master gardener of soulful matters. She seeded and weeded, pruned, and cultivated a lifelong conversation with those upstairs, not just calling on God when she needed favors or forgiveness. Her faith was absolute. Practically as pure as her love for Al.
This has been a summer of losses, a season of silent grief, a recognition that many of us have reached that chapter where peers are slowing down. And leaving. A million tears will fall at the passing of Joanna Adams. Thousands will be bereft at losing their spiritual leader, friend and neighbor.
But I hear Joanna’s laugh, remember her wicked sense of humor, her ability to marvel at the smallest things and consider them wonders. We will weep, but the angels are thrilled, and they are singing her on home.
