Jenny,
The first time I met you was BP (which is a non-petrol connotative initial standing for Before Pat) at the Christian center at this innocuous junior high night they had and we were playing this crazy game where the guy had to place a globe-sized water balloon inexplicably lathered with this green-flavored shaving cream on the top of his head and the girl was given a razor blade and blithely requested to sheer away. We were in the lead when you started laughing uncontrollably and purposefully popped the balloon (you later confessed that you just could help it) and I got drenched, but the sight of your smile and the echo of your laughter was worth the dollops of eye-splattering green slime I had to remove from my hair. A few years later I was in Dallas and I remember vividly calling home and hearing Patrick’s voice and listening to how infatuated and head-over-doc-martens in love he was with this pixie-sized lass with a golden smile named Jenny he had met through Gutter at, where else on the scalp of this planet, but our beloved LUMS (the waitresses always blushed and thought it was “so cute,” whenever you came in b/c, even if it was just the two of you dining, you always sat next to each other on the same cushion inside a dual-faced booth). For the next three years you would serve as each other’s atlas and pulse and I remember on your wedding how you wore this lavender fairy-tale outfit and I kept telling Hale that, “Dude, it looks like Patrick is marrying enya.” There are other memories I remember (inadvertently trashing the wrong car at your wedding reception --note: it was the in-laws), filling the bathtub in your honeymoon suite with beer b/c Patrick wouldn’t be 21 for another month, walking out of planned parenthood with yourself, Patrick and Hale and everyone being really somber and hush-hush before you and Patrick broke out in a festive cantata proclaiming, “WE’RE PREGNANT!!!” and everyone for some reason bashed into each other in a formative celebratory mosh until, wait, Jenny’s pregnant, we better quit roughhousing. I remember the day Zac was born and how Patrick (flustered and nicotine-addled as he was) just couldn’t refrain from arching his lips into a smile every time he glanced down at the sight of a four-minute year old Zachary. At the sight of your new creation.
But my favorite memory of all time transpired in the summer of ’98. You were pregnant with Zac and had just cut your strawberry-dyed hair short and my parents were out of town which (of course) meant party at DVB’s. The whole gang was there and I got into a fight with my girlfriend who was just instigating drama and after she slammed the door and left you looked out the window at her walking away and wryly commented aloud in astute observation (quote): “Honey that’s not an (butt), that’s a floatation device!” The whole group fell on the ground in ribbons of laughter and reams of tears.
Jenny your too-short tenure on this planet was plagued with strife from the outset. It was a pleasure to have known you, to have smoked cigarettes with you and Pat and to have laughed with you. These last few weeks it has been nothing short of a privilege hanging out with young zac, who is one of the coolest kids I have ever met. Please know that between His father and his step-mother and Hale and Mama sandy and myself, he will always be taken care of. He will always be loved.
And please know that in this time of confusion and sadness and anger, I can’t stop thinking about that spritely short red-haired girl I met at the Christian center sixteen years ago who intentionally doused the top of my head with emerald goo and who afterwards just couldn’t stop laughing. Such a sweet alluring sound indeed….
God rest the ebullience of your spirit. God rest your soul!!!!
On behalf of the “lumsBums’
David Von Behren
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