She was one of the most courageous people I have ever known.

I met her in 2008 on the former social media site “MySpace.” It seems like a lifetime ago now.

And maybe it was. Today I don’t know. I don’t know much of anything. I loved her so dearly. I got to know she and her mother well. I wanted to travel, pay them a visit, and meet them in person. But it never came to be. Money and health problems were always in my way. Now….it is too late. I can’t even travel no matter how much money I have. A spine condition and a shoulder which will end up with me in surgery is looming, and that’s even without my lung and heart condition.

I still want to go. To hug her mother and give her my good shoulder if she ever needs one.

I can’t. This is as heart-rending as news of Janie’s death. All my life I’ve wanted to help, even when I was being an asshole. It was there, inside my heart.

Jane was a former user who beat her beast by sheer strength of will. But there was tragedy and trauma behind her. Sometimes those can never be outfought, not by the strongest of us.

It’s tragic that a rapist changed the course of her life. It’s tragic that she could not, in the end, outrun something that took place so early in her life.

She was beautiful and loved writing poetry, discussing politics, and photography. She had a keen awareness of fashion, and was eager to love, and be loved back. One wonders, what could she have done, this passionate, empathetic and starry-eyed girl could have accomplished had things gone differently for her.

Back when I first met her, I saw such a promising young woman, and so much potential. I expected to see her do great things.

And she lived up to everything I had seen in her.

In so doing, it wasn’t necessary for her to do anything special.

Because what she accomplished in her short life was to give everyone she touched an example of how to treat others and make sure kindness showed in her words and in the things she wrote about on her MySpace blog.

Even when my own brand of madness drove others away, she treated me the same as always. I loved her for that, but then, I already loved her.

Life was very unfairly hard on this woman who was always quick to laugh at even the most lame jokes. She literally lived through Hell and kept her sense of humor.

It was very hard at times on her mother and her brother. He’s a fine young man with his own potential for greatness.

Together, the trio had dealt with the deaths of friends and family. Jane lost her father, an uncle and had one grandmother left. That’s a lot for people to go through.

Jane always took things like that hard but was quick to come back and try to be strong for others. Anything less just wouldn’t be her.

She wrote freely about rape and inspired others to fight just a little harder and hang on a bit longer.

She wrote poetry to melt the most hardened of hearts, and she loved computer graphics. Not even living in the most haunted house in Brooklyn could break her even if it did take its toll.

She loved cats but had a love for all animals and even told me once about a raven that waited for her outside of the house and then followed her everywhere she went. While people like myself would have been spooked by such a thing, she saw it as special and a wonder. She could see the world in ways I never could. She was like that.

She was imperfect, as we all are, but taking on her own demons and winning is something so few of us are able to do.

And she was always wiser than her age.

Prayer

Abba, we are heartbroken at the loss of our dear friend, and though we must grieve now, we must also celebrate her life. We were truly blessed to have known her at all. Please be gentle with her spirit, as she was so gentle with others. She was a good friend and a Christian, and we pray now that her suffering is over. We thank you, Lord, for her life, for she enriched the lives of so many others.

In the name of Yeshua, your only son, the redeemer, amen.

Thank you all for reading. You may not have known her, and that’s a tragedy, but you can rest assured that here was one of the best people I have ever known.