Jennifer Neesam Marchillo 1972-2010

Jenni Neesam died on Sunday. Her obituary appeared in today's paper. She was 38 years old and leaves behind a young daughter and step-son. Jenni was a year behind me in high school and I so clearly remember laughing and joking with her at basketball and volleyball games. She was always so much fun to be around. This post is in her honor as a way of sending out thoughts and prayers to her family. Cancer is the hardest thing for us to understand because it has no rhyme or reason in choosing its victims. Why Jenni? Why someone so young? And why a young mother?

Kahlil Gibran is my favorite poet. Here is what he says of death:

You would know the secret of death.
But how shall you find it unless you seek it in the heart of life?
The owl whose nightbound eyes are blind unto the day cannot unveil the mystery of light.
If you would indeed behold the spirit of death, open your heart wide unto the body of life.
For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.
In the depth of your hopes and desires lies your silent knowledge of the beyond;
And like seeds dreaming beneath the snow, your heart dreams of spring.
Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.
Your fear of death is but the trembling of the shepherd when he stands before the king whose hand is to be laid upon him in honor.
Is the shepherd not joyful beneath the trembling, that he shall wear the mark of the king?
Yet is he not more mindful of his trembling?
For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and melt into the sun?
And what is it to cease breathing but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?
Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing.
And when you have reached the mountaintop, then shall you begin to climb.
And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.

--Kahlil Gibran, "The Prophet"

Here's to you, Jenni. May you now truly dance in peace, free from pain and anguish. Your spirit lives on in Olivia and no one left behind on earth will forget your strength and courage and the lessons you taught all of us in facing our fears head-on. May God bless you and keep you until we can dance with you again.