Talking about Jessica...

It's been one of those weird kind of springs, full of highs and lows and normalcy all jumbled into a rush of minutes and hours and days that simply won't slow down. On May 20th, after weeks of intense suffering, beautiful wife, mother, daughter, sister, aunt, and friend Jessica Lichtsteiner-Hosking lost her mortal life to cystic fibrosis. The fact that the disease had taken its toll in recent years, and the knowledge that it was inevitable that the CF would eventually kill her doesn't really make it any easier. Faithful folks say that knowing you are going to die is a blessing, a grace, because it allows you to become closer to God in preparation for death and judgement. I have no doubt this is true, and find comfort in that. And our Faith encourages us to be hopeful, all the while praying for the dying and the dead, that their souls may be together with God in eternity, and eventually we may be reunited with our mothers and fathers and friends there too...It's the human factor that is the hard part. We are people who live in groups- beginning with our own family unit and radiating outward to our schoolmates, relatives, coworkers, parish members, and communities. And though Jessica, who lived a whole 27 years, was not part of my daily life lately, I have so many memories of her, and to self-soothe my own heart I wanted to write about her.
Jessica was the oldest of eight beautiful children born to two of the most beautiful people I know. Talk about do anything for anybody- it's an amazing bunch. I met Jessica when she was perhaps 10 or 11, but she was one of those children with big doe-brown eyes and a sprinkling of freckles and sunny brown locks of hair- the genuine smile of someone who just means it. I taught her in school from the sixth grade on, pretty much all her science classes. I think I may be correct in saying those were her favorite classes as well, because she always had a penchant for anything science. It was no surprise to me that she went into a medical profession when she became a respiratory therapist.
She was always polite and kind-hearted; she called me "Mrs. Lampe" until the last time I saw her several weeks ago. I know she was her mother's helper always, but not because her mom "made" her do it, but because she was part of the family and wanted to help. Back in the fall she came into school to watch my daughter and some other little ones for a couple of hours while we taught class. It doesn't sound all that taxing, but she came in looking thin as a rail, on antibiotics and oxygen, obviously tired, but willing. Her attitude was one of resignation but it wasn't depressed or sad. It was realistic yet hopeful. Her smiling brown eyes and huge grin said it all.
The night she died, I was actually out on the trails out back, running as hard as I could. I knew through the grapevine that it was probably her last day on earth. I was striding along, and I was crying for her, for her suffering, for the suffering of her sisters and brothers, her friends, her parents, her husband and tiny daughter who would only know her mother by photos and stories. I would go from elation in knowing that her suffering on earth would soon end, hoping in her redemption, to bitterness that God chose to take her now and leave everyone behind to miss her and feel that vacuum wherever she had been before. I felt a piece of agony with her parents who had cooperated with God in bringing her here, only to see her leave forever, and thought that my heart would break.
As I ran along, I started climbing hills and sucking in air, gasping in the strain of it, and I felt a part of Jessica's torture. I felt that sensation of gasping, needing that oxygen, and I offered it up to God for Jessica alone. The hard part was that when I stopped I could get that oxygen. I could stop and take a deep deep breath and feel it fill me and save me. Jessica could do no such thing. And I so wished I could run over there and give it to her myself and say "here, I brought you some air! Take it! Fill yourself up with it!" And I knew I couldn't do that, but I just wished I could. So I was running along crying by myself in the woods, sobbing over loss and change and pain, not so much for me, but for good people, wishing it didn't have to be so. Because I know what happens. We all keep going. We move on and on and on and on. People come and go, we start thinking about school and bills and what to do with the car problems, what movie to watch, what shoes to buy. We meet new people and love them, people we love move away. And maybe that's the only way we could all possibly survive losses like that.
I hope Jessica's husband and family know she was loved and admired and will not soon be forgotten, lost in the runaway train that is life here on earth. I for one will say hello to her often and say a little prayer for her while I'm at it. Her humble life will sit quietly with us all, and memories of her will patiently hold us over until we see her again, God willing. Rest in peace, Jessica.