Remarkable, Ordinary Jean

     When you examine them closely, it is the ordinary lives that are most remarkable. I have been thinking, of course, of Jean, who died a few days ago. I was Jean's home health aide for five years and friend for five after that. Jean was a good hearted soul, but her upbeat attitude and childlike enthusiasm did not come from an easy life. Her father died suddenly when she was 11 leaving a mother, who had never worked outside the home, with two daughters to raise alone. Jean married at 18, had her first child at age 20 and another daughter and son after that. As her children grew older, she worked hard at a tire factory to earn enough income to divorce her abusive husband. At the time, divorce carried a stigma, especially since she went to the Catholic church. Jean's second husband was a wonderful man who died suddenly, leaving his estate to the children of his first marriage. So Jean started over, this time working at a nursing home, often double shifts. Her third husband was an alcoholic who took her rambling across the country until they divorced when she came to Montana and he went to prison for check fraud.
     By the time I came into Jean's life she had recovered from the worst of the depression and anxiety. She may have been "done with men", but she was not done with life. She loved good food. That was actually the first question she asked when the office suggested me as her caregiver, "Ask her if she can cook." I assured her I was a good cook and I had many chances to prove it over the years. I love to cook and getting paid to do so was like earning double time to me. I cooked the way she used to for her family--fried chicken, pies, cakes and other things not good for her diabetes. Jean also loved shopping, which is why her money was gone the day she cashed the check. It never occurred to her to save her spending money for later in the week or her EBT credit, formerly called food stamps, for later in the month. Jean was the impulse buying queen. If she saw it, she wanted it and, if she could possibly afford it, she bought it. Finding a place to put it in her one bedroom apartment was up to us, her aides. Jean would buy a 20 lb. bag of potatoes at Costco one month, give or throw away half of them, and buy another 20 lb. bag the next month because that was her way of doing things.
     Jean also loved going for drives and some of my best memories of our time together are on those drives. Jean does not have as many good memories as I do, because my magical sleeping car caused her to drop off instantly, sometimes before we got out of town. Then she would straighten up and make a comment as if she had never been asleep. I drove her to Bigfork and Whitefish and she drove me crazy, sometimes. . . in the way people who love each other do. Another thing Jean loved was Montana and she got her wish to die, and be buried, here. Her daughter and I were holding her hands as she drew her last breath and her remains will become part of the land she loved.
     Our friendship also remains, because believers are never parted for long. Jean's hard life made her better instead of bitter. And in that remarkably ordinary gift that is friendship, she made mine better too.