becky sarwate

My heart is still a bit raw, but I feel the tiniest amount of closure after yesterday’s funeral for Jesika. Oddly enough, it was not the funeral itself that allows me to feel I am starting to heal, but the events that happened after my family, friends and I left the site of our girl’s memorial. It was hard to connect with Jesika within the confines of the church. For one, heavy makeup and treatments had been applied to disguise her last days’ suffering and the fact that she’d been deceased a week already. The body I saw in the chapel had none of Jesika’s naughty smile, playful eye and droll wit. I felt Jesika during the tributes delivered by her two older brothers, Brandon and Kyle. However, it was difficult to reconcile such a somber setting with the light spirited person that was Jesika Thompson.

When I was a freshman, I was part of a four person crew: Jesika, myself, my best friend Gary, and our other pal Danielle. After graduation, Gary and I sort of lost touch with Danielle, as tends to occur when people grow, move and change. We hadn’t seen her in more than 10 years before she walked in the door of the Joliet chapel yesterday morning. It was like no time had passed, as the four of us, in addition to Jen, sat close, whispering, sharing funny and irreverent reminiscinces. It was as if Jesika was there right there with us, egging us on to perform mischief at an inappropriate time. Gary, Danielle, Jen and I decided we’d take Eddie, Max and the girls, skip the anticlimatic part where Jesika’s long lifeless body was laid to rest, and head to a place where we could catch up and tell old tales about Jesika’s enormous stock of bravado.

We headed for Rosemont, Danielle driving in the front, myself and Jen following behind in our cars like a funeral procession in microcosm. We were in search of T.G.I. Friday’s, a place sure to sell cosmos, Jesika’s favorite drink, at 1 PM in the afternoon. The mood of Friday’s seemed appropriately unserious, as I think Jesika would have appreciated. The best part was that Jesika’s boyfriend, Kevin was able to drive up to join us at the end for a celebratory, tearful, but humorous toast to a life well lived by a woman well loved.

I chose this title because of its intentional double meaning. The group of us celebrated Jesika as she was, warts and all, loving each and every precious fragment of memory she left with us. These memories often include tears of laughter so intense, you wake up the next morning with sore abs. At the same time, our little Jesika convention began to remind me that she left me and so many others with unbreakable ties, as her brother Kyle said yesterday, her own “rainbow coalition.” I will always miss her. But as alive as she felt at that T.G.I. Friday’s table, I know Jesika will never be difficult to find.

It has been four days since I sat at my friend Bobby’s computer in Tel Aviv, Israel, chatting with Eddie on Skype at 3 AM. I was two hours away from leaving for Ben Gurion Airport to catch my flight back to Chicago via London. I was good naturedly giving Eddie the business for ordering a costly new computer in my absence, when Jen called Eddie’s cell phone, tearfully relaying the news that Jesika had passed.

Though I was in complete shock at the time, and had to endure a painful 24-hour trip home that I would not wish on my worst enemy, for some reason, I have only thought of Jesika more, rather than less with each passing day. Those of us who loved her have learned some information that accounts for Jesika’s really sudden expiration (aggressive small cell Stage 4 ovarian cancer), but there is just no explanation that will make these events seem fair, or soothe the ache of our hearts.

I expected the constant mental replay of all the special and hilarious moments we shared throughout the course of our 16-year friendship. I was ready to feel the anger, sadness and pain that accompanies the sudden absence of a loved one. But as I try to go about my day-to-day business, it is the little things that feel like they are crushing my heart into even smaller pieces. For example, while giving my house a thorough cleaning on Monday, I suddenly looked down at the dustbuster in my hand and lost it. This utensil, which I adore, was a wedding shower gift from Jesika to me back in the Fall of 2007. Of all the things I had listed in my registry, it was so like her to zero in and buy the one item that compliments my neat freak nature.

My last day at the ADA is next week, Friday the 8th. I sent out a little going away happy hour invitation for myself prior to leaving for Israel. I reviewed the invitation today for anyone I may have missed. Before I could catch myself, I remarked out loud that I had forgotten Jesika. There will be many tough days ahead, but I know for a fact that if she were still here and well, she would have indeed joined me for a last day drink. Because very few people were as supportive of my efforts to make myself a writer as she was, even if she complained about having to buy StreetWise.

I have lost loved ones before, but never a close, intimate friend, a contemporary who I firmly believed had a long, full and fabulous life ahead of her. Jesika was educated, funny, and immensely talented. I can’t get over the apparent waste of her death. I know there must be a silver lining somewhere, but God help me, I just can’t find it right now.

Jesika’s funeral is on Saturday. I am trying to mentally prepare myself for that first shocking image of her lifeless body lying in wait. Among many factors related to this situation, it seems so wrong that someone with so much joie de vivre pumping through her veins should be motionless and quiet. How? Why? And before all of us could say our final goodbyes? Granted, I wrote this post when Jesika first found out she was sick, lo these three weeks ago. I am forever glad I did, no matter how uncomfortable it made her. I know that she saw it, and I know she understood my love for her. I just wish I had time to say more.

Jesika’s brother Brandon called me the day before Jesika perished. He urged me to call him back ASAP, and that is a message I never received because my cell did not have international service. I am struggling very hard to overcome the intense guilt I feel over not having been with her and her family in the end.

Jesika Brooke Thompson

Born: August 17, 1978

Died: April 25, 2009

I will let Jen speak for me. For once, I have no words.

It’s going to take me some time to process all I have seen and experienced here in Israel, and what it all means to me. Right now, my head is sort of dizzy with the prospect of seeing Eddie for the first time in two weeks at the airport tomorrow. At the risk of sounding completely corny, it’s like nothing in my life is real or full until I have shared it with him. We had a brief web chat over Skype earlier this evening before I went with Bobby and Moish out on the town for my last night in Tel Aviv. I warned him that he will be bored out of his socks tomorrow night listening to my chatter. No matter how lethargic I might be when I deplane, I know I will find my second wind when I see his gorgeous face waiting for me in baggage claim.

I think I have found a side of myself I never knew existed until I came to this place, so abundantly rich in religious and cultural history. I discovered a “believer” of some sort. I am not necessarily certain as of yet what shape that belief takes, but I definitely unloaded a heavy burden of cynicism. As I said, it will take awhile to sort out, but I don’t think this change is at all temporary. If this post sounds annoyingly vague, I think I have warned you in the past that I have more questions than answers. But in ways I don’t yet have the language to describe, I think I have found some truth here amongst heritage that frankly, everyone in the world can claim in some form or another. It’s an inner kind of certainty. I feel more sure of the decisions I have made recently, less plagued by doubt.

Bobby and I have been friends for years, but I do feel I will be at a loss without Moish. He has been my friend, companion and nurse throughout the last week. Brat that I am, I have mocked his solicitous nature a time or two, but yesterday, as Day 3 of a nasty rash raged on my forearms and hands, tears falling, more than slightly considering rebooking my flight for an early return to Chicago, it was his gentle RN experience and love that soothed me in a way that I am not sure anyone else could have. He consulted his Israeli medical books, pulled out an unforseen arsenal of creams and medications, and confidently assured me that what I feared was a bacterial infection, was in reality, simply an allergy to their laundry detergent. I don’t have a mother in my life, though I have dear mother figures. Somehow I feel Moish is the comforting Mummy I have always longed for, friend to all children and animals. Lucky Bobby, and he knows it.

I feel that the little vignettes of understanding I have gained here will only enhance as I move forward through the next phase of my life. I am back to work on Monday, two weeks to go until I am done at the ADA. Then? Who knows? But something tells me that this week has fortified me to face that unknown. I have a greater sense of what’s really important in life, what is and isn’t worth getting worked up about. I pray tonight, as I prepare for my flight home, for the strength of character to hold onto those assurances in the weeks ahead.