Some thoughts
from Jenn’s Mom:
How do you describe
a girl like Jenn, let me try, she was a beautiful young woman both inside and outside.
She had a heart of gold, she didn’t always have a lot of common sense but that was a part of her charm.
She would light
up any room she entered; you’d know she was there and not just because of her height.
She was funny and had a great sense of humor, I don’t know that I always appreciated it but that was my Jenn.
Some of her
favorite things to do were:
Sunbathing,
she could sit in the sun for hours, as a matter of fact she use to go sunbath at the pool at a local hotel, like she belonged
there and no one ever questioned her right to be there.
She loved to
read, she would read several books a week. She was very smart and could converse
with anyone on any subject.
She loved kids;
especially her nieces and nephew but she also had a way with all kids. I’ve
seen her kneel down to a small child’s height to talk to them in a grocery store.
She loved her
“numa”. The “numa” was a tattered, shredded leftover
of what was her childhood pillow. No one wanted to touch “numa” because
it was pretty nasty looking after 30 odd years. I kept a small piece of “numa”
and the rest went with Jenn, it was her security blanket.
Another favorite
thing that Jenn liked to do was shop on E-Bay. When she discovered E-Bay she
was in her glory, I think Laura put her on to this new outlet. Mentioning her
love of E-Bay reminds me of one of her last purchases. For Jenn’s wake I needed to find either a turtleneck or high neck outfit and as I went through her
closet this wasn’t an easy thing to do because it wasn’t the style Jenn typically wore. As I pondered what I was going to do, I noticed that there were some unopened packages from E-Bay that
had arrived after Jenn passed. I decided to open them to see if there might possibly
be something I could use. I was very surprised when in one of the boxes was a
purple, high neck dress, that I know Jenn must of liked because it was one of her last purchases. It was surreal that she picked out her own dress for her funeral.
Jenn loved her
cats, in case you didn’t know it she had five cats, which in turn we ended up with five cats. Jenn had promised us that she would take two with her when she left.
Unfortunately, for Jackson & Kendall that happened last year when they both passed away within two days of each
other. Jenn’s promise didn’t come to mind until much later. Of course, the thought was Jenn would take them when she moved out, so she did keep
her promise, just not the way we thought, sorry Jackson & Kendall.
Jenn was known
for her great driving skills, not. I think her first accident was in the so named
“Jesus Mobile”. She was in a parking lot in Lowell,
where she hit a utility truck. The funniest part (seeing the humor in any accident)
was that she had a car full of her basketball team mates in the car. Knowing
that there should not be so many kids in the car, that when she hit the truck the girls all got out of the car and took off
so they wouldn’t all be seen in the car. When I think about what that must
of looked like I see the comedic scene at the circus where the never ending stream of clowns get out of a small clown car. Not that I’m saying they were clowns but just the same concept of so many people
streaming out of this small car.
The most memorable
accident for us was when she hit us from behind. She was following us and we were getting of a ramp, we stopped, she didn’t. Although the car was Jenn’s it was insured in our name. So imagine explaining to the insurance company what happened, that our car was hit by our car. They did get it mixed up even though I was pretty clear on which car was which, I'm not going to say who the insurance
company was but they did give great service and it's a great company. We (Jenn) had to pay both deductibles because
the responsible party was also the insured.
There were many
more fender benders in between her first accident and her last. The last one
was a couple of months before she passed and it was with one of our neighbors. She
was going out for the day and said bye to me before she left. A while later Tom
asked where Jenn was, I said she went out for the day but he mentioned the car was in the driveway which was strange because
I heard her leave but didn’t hear her come back. So I went out to look
for her to see what happened, I went around the front of the car and noticed it was missing.
I called Tom to come look at it and as we are standing, scratching our heads trying to figure out what was going on,
Jenn comes walking up the driveway carrying the front bumper. She had an accident
down the street with one of our neighbors, another neighbor who drove by Jenn carrying the bumper stopped and asked her if
that was all that was left of the car. You really needed to laugh, there wasn’t
much more you could do except call the insurance company again and she wondered why her premiums were so high.
At her wake
a friend said he heard that the Registry was going to have to lay off people now that Jenn was gone.
I try to look at the blessings from Jenn leaving us so soon and one of the biggest blessing I have
is that Jenn lived with us for the last three years of her life. Although she
didn’t like the ruralness of Middleboro and missed the big city lights of Boston,
I know when she left that she knew she was loved and she was safe. I’m
so grateful that she was with us those last years.
My last conversion
with her the night she left had to do with a phone message she had from my grandson, Jonathan.
I went in to say good night to her and she was telling me that Jonathan left her a message telling her what she could
get him for his birthday. His birthday was in December and this was October,
he’s a planner that one. But she told me that she saved the message for
me to listen to because it was cute. Little did I know that would be my last
conversation with her and it was about one of her favorite things in life, her nephew.
A couple of
days after Jenn passed, I had turned on my cell phone and there was message from her.
She left us on Friday and this message was from the Wednesday before. Her
message was “Ma, why aren’t you answering your phone, your looking right at me, can you give me a bus ticket,
I want to take the bus home with you guys?” I have this last memory of
her bopping down the street talking on the phone but I didn’t realize that who she was talking to was me. I regret that in my grief that I didn’t figure out how to save that message and eventually lost it. But it’s still in my mind.
If you made
it to the end of my rambling, thank you for that. I’m not a writer so I
know there are a lot of grammatical errors but I wanted to give you a few of the many memories I have of my first born daughter.
Blessings,
Jenn's Mom
