Westword, Volume XVIII

WESTWOOD – The story was supposed to be about new friends and an old house, but it was never written. Some stories never get written.
 

So this story is for Jeannine.
 

Heading out of town up Route 109, past the ice cream and past the Oktoberfest, you soon arrive at the preschool. It was there that The Gem and I enrolled our kids for a few years, until Kindergarten brought them home to Martha Jones.
 

Those were the days between generations, though I didn’t know it. Eager to embrace the next phase of life, living in my new house and my old town, everything was about beginnings. Watching our babies become toddlers (yes, we were exhausted; yes, time has dulled the edges, so yes, I do have a pleasant memory or two) was just another step. Preschool, another step.
 

Little kid birthday parties, oy, another step. Working around nap schedules. Meeting other parents…the grown-up’s version of the first day at a new school. Wanting not to gravitate solely towards those who lived in Westwood, then doing just exactly that.
 

Then the hand of happenstance: we got into an actual adult conversation (yay!) with a couple whose kid was one of our little guy’s besties. After pleasantries gave way to some sleuthing, we discovered that they lived on the same street that my buddy Rick grew up on, not far from that bubbling ice cream. With a few more questions, we learned it was the exact house!
 

Decades earlier, so many days and nights had found me there. Watched the final episode of “Cheers” there; learned the hard way how to park on a hill there; possibly developed a scratch ticket addiction there; look, if those walls could talk…well, thank you, Lord, because they can’t. Cue the laughter – you know how I can get when I’m rolling, and I milked it well. Upon leaving, I said I hoped to see them soon.
 

Yup, my new buddy and his wife, Jeannine.
 

But I never saw them again.
 

The weeks and months scattered like crows. Her name was Jeannine. I heard awful news, she had breast cancer. More weeks, more months, more milestones. Her name was Jeannine. Then I heard she died – a week or two after the Marathon bombing, attention elsewhere. Her name was Jeannine and she was 40. By the time Kindergarten began, I heard the dad and kid had moved away.
 

Her name was Jeannine.
 

Maybe a few of you know who I am talking about, and maybe you know of an epilogue. Maybe a new mom entered the picture. Maybe not. Maybe there are new siblings. Maybe not. I hope the last decade has brought them much love and comfort and support. I have no doubt, so would Jeannine.
 

I hardly knew Jeannine at all, yet I think about her frequently. And I know this stuff happens in every town and every city, every day and every year. I lost a parent to cancer and I’ve been to scores of funerals for loved ones lost to it. My stories are by no means unique. But they are mine, and I bet you have yours. The emotions are shared and this bonds us. Permanently. Time and distance are nothing to the heart.
 

October. We highlight breast cancer awareness, but that is just to make news, raise money and wear pink – yes, all good things. In reality, we don’t need a special month. For fighters, survivors, those who have departed and those who remain, this is 24/7/365.
 

Her name was Jeannine. Might we contemplate the Jeannines we have all known, and effect some change. Pay it forward, make a donation, embrace new friends and old family. These things immortalize the people we have lost.
 

Maybe someday, somewhere, someone will write of a friend, not of the friendship that might have been.
 

Westwood Living? No…thank YOU for living in Westwood. See you next month, and I look forward to hearing from you any time at jayresha@comcast.net (even if it is just funny memes, pictures of your pets making human faces, offers for super-cheap pharmaceuticals, etc.)