09/09/2025
I remember the first time I met Carmen, I thought "She must be a big deal. Why is everyone taking pictures with her? Does she hug everybody?" Then I heart her speak. When she walked into a room, you just knew. She didn’t even have to say anything. Her presence filled the space. She was so alive and how does that just disappear?
She brought so much good into this world, in how she gave to the play therapy community. She taught me what it means to love and to embrace every part of myself. The exile, the protector, the firefighter. But especially the exile. She helped me see that those parts of me that had been pushed away were the very parts that needed the most love.
Once we talked about conferences and she lit up when she spoke about creating spaces where people who never had the chance to speak/train could, that's who she loved inviting to her trainings. She loved giving that opportunity to the underdogs, to those who might otherwise be overlooked, because she believed so deeply that everyone has something worth sharing.
These last few days, scrolling through post after post, seeing people and organizations share their memories of her, I can only hope she somehow knows the impact she made. I think many of us carry a new exile inside us. A piece of ourselves that feels frozen in this grief, aching because she is gone.
But even in that frozen place there is gratitude. Gratitude that she shared her life with us, gratitude for the laughter and wisdom she gave, gratitude for the parts of ourselves she helped us find and love.
We still had so much to learn from her. But how lucky we are to have learned what we did.
I know heaven probably doesn’t need a planner, but I hope she has all the purple gel pens and craft supplies her heart could ever want. If anyone deserves that kind of joy, it’s CJP.
