On February 2, Adrienne and I lost to oral cancer our beloved Jan, a woman who always signed her emails, “your devoted friend.” Nine months after her initial diagnosis, Jan died from what I refer to as “a malignant and demonic pregnancy.” She suffered profoundly. The day before her diagnosis, she sent this response to an email I had sent to her on her 76th birthday:
I prefer to ignore the “birth” day as I gain in years. I suppose someday, if I’m lucky, people will grin at the little old lady who is now 90 and “still kickin'” and say “you’re so cute,” or “what’s your secret?” and things like “she’s so spry!” Let’s take our wounds, remember our posture, standing up straight, and yell, “I’m still here!”
Jan was perhaps the most intelligent and literary friend I’ve ever known. We first “met” each other on February 20, 2014 when we connected on a mutual friend’s Facebook feed about the awfulness of positive thinking. She loved my comment, and I loved hers. We met each other in person 10 days later at a local cafe and talked for four straight hours. She was as well read as I was in literature and film, but eons ahead of me in terms of science. She had been arrested several times for protesting climate change at the White House.
Jan was erudite and passionate about writing. After I sent her Lauren Groff’s short story, “The Wind” and asked for her assessment, she wrote back:
I read this with my hand over my mouth. It is a beautiful work. The structure is brilliant. A daughter speaking for a daughter. When I read the line, “The children’s breath hovered low and white…” I knew I was in for some terrific writing. Wow. Stunning.
Can’t thank you enough for pointing me toward this! I don’t have enough words. It still makes me cry just thinking about it. I think the tears are both in admiration for the skill and also for the power of the story itself. I want to read everything she has written. The depiction of violence and the spectre of the father is so subdued in a way that makes it more frightening. It is masterfully managed. Everything.
I am gutted, thrown from my center. Still crying.
After she retired at age 70, she began an incredibly productive and inspired artistic period, from hundreds of large impassioned paintings to more intimate sketches and drawings.
Following is her artist profile:
Self-taught, after years of intense management responsibilities in the fields of law, graphic design, government, architecture and the arts, I am finally freed to create my own work. My work is neo-expressionist with grateful appreciation for the inspiration of the women Abstract Expressionists of the 40s and 50s. I welcome emotion and coincidence, working intuitively to establish outcomes that are open to interpretation through a universal language. My interests are in the environment and its wreckage, the twisting of norms, and the emergence of virtues. My work attempts to communicate vast, perhaps uncontrollable, forces in motion around us. It is both a warning and an affirmation.
Perhaps what Adrienne and I loved most about Jan was how much she loved us as a couple. In many ways, she pointed out strengths in the other we may have overlooked or didn’t appreciate.
On January 27, Adrienne and I saw Jan for the last time at her hospice. Even though she was non-responsive, Adrienne reminded Jan of the time she created a path of lit tea lights to welcome us back to our AirBnb after seeing an evening play that Jan did not attend. The tea-light path led from the parking lot to the front door where inside Jan had lovingly set up a repast of champagne and snacks. We popped the champagne and toasted the bonds of friendship. It was a simple and beautiful moment.
Every Sunday morning prior to the pandemic, Jan sat in meditation at a local Buddhist community. Some schools of Buddhism recognize the bardo, the state of existence between two lives on earth: after death and before one’s next birth, when one’s consciousness is not connected with a physical body. This transitional state traditionally lasts 49 days after death. Yesterday was Jan’s 49th day. The bardo end has been described as a “breaking open, a bursting forward into life, emerging with pure primordial creativity.” It’s hard to imagine Jan with even more creative energy, but that’s how I see her: protesting for social justice, painting up a storm and forever fiercely devoted to inspiring us to take our wounds, remember our posture, stand up straight and yell, “I’m still here!”
Continue to rest in bold and brazen peace, our dear beloved friend.
After I created this post yesterday, I was startled to see that three of the photographs in this post were taken in different years on the SAME day, September 26. I looked up the significance of this day in history and it’s banal. It wasn’t banal on the September 26’s pictured here.
The COVID pandemic deprived so many of us of so many things we love. One of the worst deprivations for Adrienne and me was not being able to connect with Jan even though she lived less than 30 miles away in Baltimore. Jan was hard of hearing from the toll of managing a punk-rock band (I think) decades earlier. Even though she wore kick-ass hearing aids, she could not use the phone or FaceTime. When we had watched movies in my home, for example, we had to use closed captioning.
The last time we were together with Jan prior to the COVID shutdown was on March 4, 2020 when we saw the movie, “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” — there could not have been a more appropriate film:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portrait_of_a_Lady_on_Fire
The email Jan sent to Adrienne and me informing us of her cancer diagnosis:
I would like to do this face-to-face and hug-to-hug. This is not news that you should receive in an email. But these are the times we live in, so we do what works. I have been diagnosed with oral cancer and also have an ugly basal cell thing on my face. The basal cell will be neatly removed but the oral thing? Yipes!!
I want you to know that the people in my community have rallied for me in ways I don’t deserve, but they are really there for me. So I feel safe and cared for. The surgery will be within two weeks, the doctors need to sync their schedules. One doctor will remove the cancer which will require removing a portion of the lower left side of my jaw and other growths including lymph glands in the neck. A second doctor will reconstruct the jaw using a bone from my leg. That’s a lot to even imagine. It still stuns me. I will be recovering for 5-7 days (no visitors/pandemic). Then I will go to a friend’s first floor apartment in the neighborhood to avoid stairs for another 5 days to a week. Radiation will follow. Speech therapy will also follow because my mouth and speech will be all screwed up. Fucking shit!!
Shit. Shit. Shit. There’s no good part to this. It’s just shitty, crap. I don’t want you to feel you need to DO anything. Just send some vibes my way. I have set up a site at Caringbridge.com under my name to provide immediate info to friends and family as things happen. I wouldn’t normally turn to this kind of outlet, but friends have insisted that this is the good way to keep everyone informed. So there’s that.
I am terrified and bat-shit overwhelmed with all the medical people and details involved. I wish we could sit together and talk this over. That there was a calm place to return to but things seemed to have suddenly all changed! I love you and hold you dearly in my heart.
See you soon.
Jan’s daughter posted the following on Jan’s Facebook page two hours after she died. Jan’s online handle was, “JanJamm”:
Hello friends of Janjamm:
My mother was comfortable, warm, and deeply loved when she stopped breathing at 5:05AM this morning. As many of you know, she was diagnosed with advanced squamous cell carcinoma last spring. In efforts to contain and control the spread of cancer, she has undergone an array of extreme interventions for the past nine months at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. You also probably know how strong she was and how determined she was to live her life. It was only when she no longer had the physical endurance to continue treatments that she entered hospice last week. It was in hospice that she finally found relief from a tremendous amount of pain. She would not have been able to pursue her chosen treatment journey were it not for the devoted support of an incredible community of friends and neighbors. There is so much more to say but now is not the time. I will post more information here about events and proceedings in honor of Janjamm in the future. With love and courage. ~ Sheigh (Jan’s daughter)
Included in the announcement of her mother’s death (see previous comment), was this poem which said volumes about the inappropriate ways some of Jan’s acquaintances responded to her cancer battle:
French Chocolates
by Ellen Bass
If you have your health, you have everything
is something that’s said to cheer you up
when you come home early and find your lover
arched over a stranger in a scarlet thong.
Or it could be you lose your job at Happy Nails
because you can’t stop smudging the stars
on those ten teeny American flags.
I don’t begrudge you your extravagant vitality.
May it blossom like a cherry tree. May the petals
of your cardiovascular excellence
and the accordion polka of your lungs
sweeten the mornings of your loneliness.
But for the ill, for you with nerves that fire
like a rusted-out burner on an old barbecue,
with bones brittle as spun sugar,
with a migraine hammering like a blacksmith
in the flaming forge of your skull,
may you be spared from friends who say,
God doesn’t give you more than you can handle
and ask what gifts being sick has brought you.
May they just keep their mouths shut
and give you French chocolates and daffodils
and maybe a small, original Matisse,
say, Open Window, Collioure, so you can look out
at the boats floating on the dappled pink water.
I hope Sharon’s post has given you a sense of Jan. She was a person who made an impression. A great conversationalist and listener.
While Sharon discussed literature and politics with Jan, I discussed visual arts and shared hearty laughter.
She was also thoughtful and kind, and easy to be around.
Yes, Jan was, Adrienne.
When my mother died, Jan sent me a card that said: “May I visit you? I know you have complicated feelings about your mother. I want to listen.”
One of my favorite Jan stories:
She was dating a much younger woman for several weeks. All seemed to be going well, until Jan told us that she/Jan broke up with the younger woman.
“Why? What happened?!”
“She doesn’t read.”
End of story.
PERFECT JAN STORY, ADRIENNE!
And perfectly told.
Sharie – a beautiful tribute to a special friend.
Thank you, Merrie Lee. I’m so grateful to have had her as a friend. I doubt I’ll ever meet anyone like her again.
Adrienne reminded me this morning that I failed to mention that Jan was a champion weightlifter. Four years ago, she won the “Fivex3 Charm City Strongwoman competition” in Baltimore. She also had an incredibly healthy diet with many recipes for Power Juice Super Drinks.
If she hadn’t been as healthy as she was, she would never have been approved for her extensive and invasive surgery followed by weeks of both radiation and chemotherapy. She never really regained the ability to chew.
She appreciated all the times I wore my “FUCK CANCER” t-shirt in support of her battle.
What a wonderful tribute. I totally enjoyed reading this blog about Jan, as well as the additional posts from you and Adrienne. Jan sounds like an incredibly cool and AMAZING person and friend. I am so sorry for your loss of such a “devoted friend”. Hugs to you both. xoxo
Oh, Andi, how wonderful that you took some time to acquaint yourself with our devoted friend, Jan. You must have realized, of course, how much your dearly departed sister, Kathy, shared so many of Jan’s strengths. Or perhaps Jan shared Kathy’s. In any event, the world is bereft without both of them. Thank you for the gift of your presence here. 🙏😘💕
A beautiful, powerful, and so-loving portrait of your beloved, devoted friend. Thank you for sharing her with us. Her vitality shines!
Carol, you were one of the prayer warriors who prayed for Jan during her last nine months. Further, you wrote a prayer following her death that I had on my mourning altar to her after she died, a prayer I said aloud every day Jan was in the bardo. Thank you. xoxo
A beautiful and heartfelt tribute to a very special friend. I met Jan a few times but didn’t know her well – I feel like you have captured her spirit in your post and pics. To paraphrase you in your recent card to me, if Jan was a speck of the friend to you that you are to your friends, she was a great friend indeed and as worthy of love and respect. Peace and kickassery for Jan in her travels, always.
Well, Jeanne, this brought instant tears.
All day, I’ve been in some sort of silent, sad stupor, but the floodgates opened when I read your comment. You opened your home to Adrienne, Jan and me many times, Jeanne. I’m certain her spirit is lurking around there somewhere. If you hear hearty laughter that doesn’t sound like when you, Adrienne, your dear Jim and I are together, that’s Jan making her presence known.
Thank you for posting. xoxo
P.S. Love the word, “kickassery.”
What a wonderful way to celebrate your dear friend’s continuation. I hope you are finding how she is still with you always will be. I am grateful to have met Jan. Thank you for sharing her with me.
Thank you for sharing your marvelous friend’s continuation with us here. May she inspire us all to kickassery for what matters most to us. I hope that you are finding how she continues in your life and always will. Happy Continuation dear warrior woman!
Jeeze – sorry for the double post. The first seemed to have a glitch when sent. Your amazing Jan deserves all the accolades!
No worries, dear Beth. Another comment came in posted twice, and I’m not sure why. In any event, you used the wonderful word, “kickassery” in the second comment which deserves as much as exposure as it can get. Not to mention, Jan deserves much gratitude for the kickassery she brought to all of us.
She spoke of you with high regard, by the way. She was pretty fussy about people she encountered, but she told me the evening after you met her (on the occasion of my 65th birthday), that she wished she could have spent more time with you.
Gosh, my friends have such exquisite taste in women! xoxo
This is exquisite, thank you for sharing her with us. What a gift to have friends who describe and experience Jan in these moving ways. This touched me the most:
“May I visit you? I know you have complicated feelings about your mother. I want to listen.”
I don’t know Jan, but I am going to honor and role model her by repeating this act of grace.
Kelly — I think you were meant to post your comment today because I’ve been crying off and on all day about losing Jan. Not sure why. The bardo ending and writing this post was closure of some kind; closure that I don’t think I’m ready for.
And, of course, you picked up on what you call Jan’s “act of grace” when my mother died. You know these acts when you see them because you extend them yourself, like the act of grace you extended when you posted your comment. Thank you. xoxo
So sorry to be late to this exquisite gathering. I did not want to hurry through and this week has been so jammed. Your awareness of the bardo is beautiful. I truly trust that Jan has moved from the bardo into the cloud of witnesses that we all draw on for support when we run out of our own coping skills. I know she is in your cloud and maybe you can share her with all of us. We need her today more than ever. I am so grateful for the introduction.
Beautiful perspective, Charlotte. Just beautiful and inspiring. I’m sorry you never got to meet, Jan. She was a force. It’s going to be a challenge to keep up with her cloud.
Please don’t apologize for being late to this gathering. There will always be a place for you.