The summer after I finished my senior year of high school in 1998, the mother of a classmate recommended me as a babysitter to a new family who had just moved to East Granby. Jon and Natalie had a sweet six-month old baby girl named Jaqueline. Both practicing attorneys, they needed someone to watch Jacky every once in a while. After a summer of babysitting -- and I'll never forget this -- Jon and Natalie asked me if I could recommend anyone for the school year. I was heading off to Holy Cross and wouldn't be around until the holidays. Only partly joking, I recommended my mom. "Really? Do you think she'd be interested?" My mom started watching Jacky -- and later her little brother Nate -- several times a week. Once my sister Sara got older, she started watching them as well. I'd step in during the holidays and summer breaks. Needless to say, they watched me grow up as much as I did them. We celebrated birthdays together, baked cookies for each other at Christmas, celebrated my wedding, and later participated in Sara's wedding party together.
Since 1998, my family and the Welshes have been very close. I consider them to be like family, and I know my mom and sister do too -- probably even more so. That's what makes today so hard. Last night, Jaqueline Ward Welsh passed away at the age of 13, ten days after under going surgery to repair a heart defect.
When you move half way around the world, you know these things might happen and when they do, you know they will be hard. But when they actually happen, and you can't be there to give a hug or share a shoulder to cry on, it's a whole different story. Even with all the modern technology in the world, it's still possible to feel a million miles a way.
Jacky was one of the smartest kids I have ever met -- I remember teaching her to count in Ukrainian when she was six years old. She hated dresses and begrudgingly wore one in Sara's wedding last summer. She loved marching with the marquis. She thought that what Nick and I do is neat; she asked questions way beyond her years when we saw her at my niece's baptism in June. She knew all about Armenia and listed all her friends with Armenian last names. She wanted to go to MIT.
A young life snatched away before she even had a chance to live. It absolutely breaks my heart.
3 comments:
Oh, RaeJean, what a beautiful tribute.
The first time I met Jacky seven years ago at the age of six she tried to teach me all the Arabic that she knew from her classmates. She was as nerdy as I was when I was her age, but she owned it so much better than I ever could and had so much confidence and comfort in her own skin. I feel terrible today to know that the world has been deprived of such talent, love and curiosity.
I'm so sorry to hear about your friend. It's so much harder when they're so young. Try to have your own tribute where you are - like, light a candle for her and then go to the lake and release some flowers on the water. It helps a lot.
I know what you mean about missing out on things, though. I can't tell you how many weddings we missed just in our first year in Mexico, which is a heck of a lot closer than Armenia (and also totally different from being away when someone you love passes away).
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