When Lennox Lewis and Mike Tyson brought their circus to Memphis in 2002, my friend and colleague Jennifer Biggs had a party at her house the night of the big fight.

The spectacle was probably on the TV in the background on pay-per-view, I can’t say I recall, but what I do remember is that my 9-year-old son, who knew nothing about boxing or either participant, made a collection of hand-painted signs both cheering and jeering each fighter. He would weave his way through the party guests holding up a sign every time something happened.

Jennifer Biggs, much-loved food writer, dies of cancer complications

Jennifer, who thought it was the cutest thing she’d ever seen, would mention it from time to time over the years.

Twelve years later, when my daughter died, Jennifer was one of the first to show up at my house to offer condolences and, well, just be there. It mattered to me then; it matters to me now. Jennifer, it seems, always managed to be in the vicinity during some of the brightest moments of my life and during some of the darkest.

And so it hit particularly hard, and felt particularly lonely, when she wasn’t there during a dark moment late Wednesday evening. That’s when I heard of her passing through a company email from Eric Barnes, publisher and CEO of The Daily Memphian, where Jennifer, as most of Memphis knows, was a food writer who made us all hungry for every word she’d dish up.

I soon saw the outpouring on social media as well.

The speed of her passing, only a couple of months after announcing publicly her battle with stage 4 colon cancer, was breathtaking and devastating for those of us who knew her.

Calkins: Jennifer Biggs brought us together for lunch again. Even though she was stuck in a hospital room.

I first met Jennifer in 2001 when I became deputy editor of The DeSoto Appeal, an edition of The Commercial Appeal published in DeSoto County for about a decade. She was one of the newspaper’s five original reporters, and her desk sat directly across from mine — a vantage point from which she could easily needle me about not messing up her story and, at the same time, clue me in on where she was having lunch that day, a food writer in training even though neither of us knew it at the time.

Jennifer eventually moved from The DeSoto Appeal to The Commercial Appeal in Memphis, where she became food writer and where I later followed in a variety of assignments. We never again worked together as closely as we had in DeSoto County, but we still talked and laughed together regularly up until she made the move to The Daily Memphian at its inception in September 2018.

When I too made the move to The Daily Memphian a few months after her, in January 2019, Jennifer had a hand in it. Of course she did. She was the one who put me in touch with James Overstreet, The Daily Memphian’s managing editor, about openings.

My first day, she took me to lunch at Crosstown Concourse and, not surprisingly, told me where we needed to eat. I knew to never question Jennifer when it came to gastronomical recommendations.

She later went to dinner with my wife and me, along with my brother-in-law and sister-in-law, directing us to an out-of-the-way Latin American spot on Summer Avenue, a place we would never have known about without her.

Geoff Calkins talks about Jennifer Biggs, James Taylor and shifting from sports

Around the first of this year, she mentioned that evening together and said she wanted to do it again. I told her I’d like that too, and we made tentative plans to do it once she got free of some things. We both got busy and never got around to it, each thinking — as people tend to do — that there would always be time.

Instead, the last time I did spend any real time with her was when she asked me to attend a service at her home for her ex-husband, Bob, after he died. One of the things she always found joy in sharing with me over the years were tales of Bob’s latest adventure as he tried out a new hobby or possible career change. It would usually bring a giggle that belied any air of the professional journalist others might see.

There will, without question, be an outpouring of memories and stories not unlike mine about Jennifer in the coming days and weeks, as well there should be, since she touched so many people through her words and personal interactions.

One of the blessings about the journalism business, for all its faults, is the way it gives us a chance to connect with people we would otherwise never have known. Jennifer surely took advantage of that and those with whom she connected were the beneficiaries probably more than her.

I’ll miss her, as will many others. And I’m sad for her that she won’t get to see her two grandchildren grow up, as I’d miss seeing my own grow.

A conversation with Jennifer Biggs about food, drinks and WYXR

But I’m glad she was here, both during times when I wanted to laugh and when I wanted to cry. She helped with both.

Most of us don’t have the opportunity to change the world, but we can all make our little corner of it a bit brighter during the brief moment we’re given. She did that for me and many others.

May the light now shine on you, Jennifer.