| Rich's tribute:
We will be known forever by the tracks we leave. - Dakota proverb
They are not dead who live in the hearts they leave behind. - Tuscarora proverb It's hard to imagine that someone so quiet and unassuming could leave so deep and lasting an impression. It's nearly impossible to imagine that she's gone. Janine was truly the daughter I always wanted. Yes, she was quiet - although she could occasionally cut loose with the best of us - but there was wisdom behind her shy smile that belied her youth. She was a young woman, but she had an old soul. There was a sadness about her, too, which often kept that smile from reaching her eyes. She came into our home and instantly became family - daughter, sister, and girlfriend, all in one beautiful package. As I watched her blossom from a bashful girl into hard-working and (seemingly) self-confident woman, I couldn't have been more proud if she'd been my biological daughter. I bragged about her to coworkers and friends as though she were my own. When her employer, Baptist South Hospital, named her "Employee of the Month," I told everyone I knew; I even posted the news on Internet message boards. I was a little concerned when she decided she wanted to go to school and study nursing, because I remember how difficult it is to combine studies with a full time job. But she handled it with strength and courage, maintaining excellent grades and still finding time for church activities, work, and driving lessons. And she was adorable when she passed her driving test; she was so proud. I have to admit that Janine's accomplishments lulled me into a false sense of security. I lost sight of the fact that she was under constant attack; she lived with demons most of us never have to deal with. In the end she succumbed to them, but theirs is a hollow victory. They may have stolen from us her physical body, but they couldn't take away her smile, her laugh, her wisdom, her love, or her spirit. She brought beauty and grace to our lives, and we will keep her with us until the end of our days. |
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| Chris's tribute:
My precious Janine, I have been asked to write a tribute to you for this web page. I feel like it should come easily, because you gave me so much to work with. Memories, good times, some tough times, your entire self. But it isn't easy. It isn't easy to summarize the impact of one beautiful life on me. Memories; how do I pick what memories to write about? For five years, everything in my life has been a memory of you. Everything you touched, around me, inside me. You came into my life in the unlikeliest of ways, through an AOL chat room, and you left my life forever changed. I want to remember the ways you changed it for the better, not the horrible way it has been changed by the way I lost you. Yet everything I see is a reminder of both. I guess the most that can possibly be asked of a person is that they change another person for the better. And you did that for me. Before I knew you, I was just like you, ready to check out of this life at any time. But you came and changed all of that. You gave me something to live for, something to aspire to, something to care about. I've been living on disability now for several years, for reasons similar to those that had you living on Social Security, with no plans for anything better to do with my life. You gave me the strength to get myself back into college and try to dream again. Your example, going back to school yourself, with all the challenges it entailed, inspired me. I haven't been back to school this summer and I only took one class during the spring because I wanted to start slowly. It had been a long time since I last took a test or turned in an essay. You gave me the courage to do that, to test those waters again and think about something better than just barely getting by on disability for the rest of my life. I promise you, I won't let that one class go to waste. I will do what you would want me to do and go back to school either this fall or this winter, whenever my financial aid works itself out, and I will make you proud of me, wherever you are. You inspired me in so many ways. Going back to work, learning to drive when you were 26 years old, going back to school, having plans for the future. It tears my heart apart to think that those dreams cannot be fulfilled now. You wanted to be a nurse. You would have made a wonderful nurse. You were caring and sensitive and smart and you had the admiration of all of your coworkers at Baptist South Hospital, where you worked. I will never forget the pride you took in winning the Shining Star award for employee of the month in the entire hospital. But I was always proud of you. Even before you did all those things with your life to try to improve yourself. I was proud to know someone so loving, so giving, so shy and sweet and beautiful inside and out. I may have taken you for granted sometimes, I'm sure we both did, that's the nature of long-term relationships, but I always thought we'd get through anything. There's no getting through this though. Not really. I'll never be truly healed. How could I possibly fill the hole left by someone like you? I don't know if you ever knew how irreplaceable you were to everyone who knew you. I hope you know it now. I hope you are someplace where you are loved and taken care of, the way you took care of me, the way you would have taken care of your patients if you'd ever lived to see through your dream of becoming a nurse. I hope you are someplace where you can look down on our tears and think, "Don't cry forever, we'll see each other again." And I know, if you are in that place, you are still loving us all, all of us you felt you had to leave behind because the pain got to be too much for you. The pain none of us could heal. May it be healed now.
Love forever, |
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