Overwhelmed

[LJAmara]

I just wanted to say that I am thoroughly overwhelmed by all of this. I always scoffed a bit to myself about online friendships. Perhaps I need to rethink my position on that. Thank you all so very much for keeping her memory alive. I'll close this now. Anne is dying to say something.

Lisa

[LJAmara]

Hi! I hope it's ok for me to share a few things? Better introduce myself first huh? I'm Annie and Jenn was my big sister. I just got the chance to really meet her again a couple of years ago. Some of you guys prolly know her better than I do. When things went to hell at home she gave me a place to stay and helped me pick out a school here in CO to attend. I was pretty unfair to her for awhile but I been facing up to some of my own things and now I just wish I had known her longer.

[heinzs]

The Poetry Pages poets are a very unusual and close-knit community of like-minded souls that have found each other in this strange cyberspace. I would have scoffed as you have done if anyone ever told me I would get to know and even love people I would never meet other than as words on a screen. But that is just what did happen here.

Jenn has been an important part of our lives since her first post here. We're not about to give any of that impact up.

Cheers to you, Lisa! Thank you for sharing Jenn with us and for giving us this opportunity to let our hearts speak.

I am most pleased to meet you, Annie! I wish we could all have known her a little longer.

:heinzs:

[the quiet poet]

The only suitable words I can find are these: Thank you.

[Moongem]

Lisa? As Jenn found out, as I found out, and, as many of us find out after reaching and breaching the web, connecting with a person does not have to involve sight. In fact, mind is where real interactions take place, visuals can confuse and distract... Wouldn't Jenn just so understand that? :) In many ways I have been enriched by my cyber-friends, especially here, at PP. Jenn, too, felt the importance of PP's clime, she was here before me, but when I found her, that was it. I wouldn't leave her alone. I thought by force of ferocious goodwill, I could get her to see her precious light...it was a naive gesture. I can see Jenn smiling, wryly, at my, many times drunken, avowals, extortions, pleas, whines, and even angry expectations that she would become whole and healed. Until the epiphany axed me between the eyes, and I died a little bit for her, and all others who are spirit-murdered, only then did I stop my badgering.

Jenn was so special, her words were never all blaming, always self effacing, but, oh, so wise and otherly-matured. I feel hate towards her abusers, I feel disgust and outrage and a need to scream and cry to the world, to tell them that evil is inherent in humanity. It is not a matter of being evil and having a core of good, there is no good in some people, no respect, no love for anything but self. I cannot comprehend being such a small, knotted, ignorant, idiotic asshole as this...

Sigh. Funny thing. Today, there was not a cloud in the sky. For the last four days, we've had swoops and swells and slow moving, wool-gathering clouds lolling and hugging the mountains and Morenci. :) I smile when I think it may have been Jenn, wanting to kick me in the butt to get my attention, but settling for intricate lacings and placings of clouded skies. lazily relaxing and having her fun with me, watching my silly life with her slight *s*. No rain, mind you, no tears, just exhiliration of freedom, love of what was on earth, its beauty funneled into the skies and, finally finding my heart.

I can just see her quirked lips as she shakes her head at 'Moonie', the soul-struggler, the ever-questioning, the always agonizing. How small my worries seemed when I saw that *s*, and thought "how does she do that, smile after what she's gone through?" Lisa, I think it was you who brought her adult smile out, her ability to reach out, with fear, yes, tentatively, but it was reaching, to reconnect with others. I wonder what she'd have been if...

I immerse myself in all, Lisa. Jenn knew that, chided me gently when I was laboring to find myself and, with deranged ostentatiousness, blundered and errored and made a compacted person out of what I'd become. And, to my eternal gratitude, she helped shape the Me I am now, two years after meeting her. I would have given up a part of my essence to her, if I could have. I wanted her to feel, if only for a moment, that life is worth living, what a semi-happy childhood felt like, what innocence into your 20's tasted of... I wanted to give her my life.

And, she saw that. :) Silly bird, to coddle a fool. But, I thank her for that.

For now, it is not enough that I couldn't physically hug her, but it is a balm to be on the receiving end of one of her *hugz*.

One last note, Lisa. It may feel we like you because of Jenn. Not so, we like and respect you for your compassion and curiosity, for your thougtfulness and mothering, for your laughter and tears, for the singular reason most of humanity likes each other, you are unique. :) And you touched and helped and salved, not only Jenn's soul, but ours, when she would tell us how lucky she was to have found you.

Always hugs, kisses, flowers, sunshine and love will be extended to you and the girls (and you are welcome to come and visit, or abide, as much as you want, or as less as you want, at your decisioin and discretion. You would not be a continuation of Jenn, you would be you. And, Annie? :) Please join PP's community, we will help foster your desires to know jenn better, or encourage and help you write, if you are so inclined. I know, with every cell of my being, Jenn loved and treasured you, but felt inclined to protect your being as opposed to 'crouching over your abusee body'. Such a gathering of mind had your sister, so young did she learn more than I know now.... Hugs and love to you and I wish you the best in your future.

It's late, I'm not spell-checking this, gotta put kids to bed, it's the weekend but they have a 4-H Poultry meeting early. Goodnight, loves. Jenn? :) I treasure your cloud artwork, you goof! You know I saw them, in my inner eye, before I 'understood them', as usual I adored their shapes, wefts, weaves, wafflings and willowy grace. I can just imagine you saying, "enough is enough, Moonie" that morning, for when I saw the bird-cloud, I could see you were leaving. Only a few tears this time, love.l Goodnight, Jenn. Lisa, you and the girls and the relatives, sleep tight, feel alright, show Jenn your pride and we will all open our minds wide to let her in, to see her everywhere, to pass on hope.

Erin Kelly-Moen

[thief of dreams]

overwhelmed by us? sheesh.. usually people just point and laugh at us.. hehe...
good to uhh 'meet' ya Annie... we really arent as bad as Jenn probably made us out to be.. hehe... oh wait, that was that other poetry place.. yea.. we be saints here.. well ok maybe not.. but we try not to slam doors in eachothers faces most the time... look forward to hearing more from ya... but thats up to you... hey can you do us a favor? after a little while smack Lisa with something soft and get her to post more poetry.. she teased us with one that rocked and then never posted another... now we are starving for more... sheesh...
you two take care of eachother k? and the keyboard will probably work better if you clean all the cracker crumbs out of it.. hehe...