Jeannette

                                                     Jeannette & her son Nathan 2010

Or Netty as I usually call her.  There's 3 of us girls, Margo, Jeannette, & Marie, tres French I know.  Margo is the oldest, with Jeannette 16 months younger, and then me coming almost 4 years later.  Of course there's also those 6 brothers in mix.  But this is about Jeannette.

Growing up we were super close.  We played barbies and babies and even slept in the same single bed up until we were teenagers.  In the middle of the night when Netty went to the bathroom I followed along telling her how tired I was.  Hmmm, maybe I just should have stayed in bed, but where she went, I went.

 Nielsen, Margo, Sis.in law Sheralyn, Ty, Dad, Mom, Marie, Jeannette (stuck like glue)  in front row,
Aaron, Kyle, Adam           1991

When she went babysitting, I came along.  When she went to friends homes, I came along.  And believe it or not, when she was older and went on dates, guess who came along?  Yup, I did.  Looking back we realize this was not normal behavior, but we just loved being together.  Or maybe I just whined and cried until she took pity on me, my memory is a bit fuzzy.

I remember so many times laying by her while she studied.  I would just wait for her to finish so we could play.  Isn't that what every teenager wants to do with their kid sister?

She made me feel special and loved and I was proud of my big sister.  She was beautiful and smart and still is.  She is actually the one we deem 'the smart one in the family'.  When it comes to her education, she has a natural ability to do well.  She graduated college and went on to serve an LDS mission in Thailand for 18 months.

Upon returning home she dated lots of cute boys (men?) and I just knew that whoever she picked (because really she was the one doing the picking) he would be the smartest, most handsome, most successful and brilliant man out there.  Men fell completely under her spell and always fell in love with her.  Always.

She picked someone.  They were married and happy.  She worked and planned on doing an internship to become an RD.  She was accepted to a prestigious internship, 1 out of 300.  No one was surprised that they chose her, why wouldn't they?  She found out she was pregnant and decided more important than the internship was focusing on her pregnancy and baby.  Besides, another internship would surely come along, that just seemed to be the pattern of her life.

They built a home and a family.  They had a daughter Kylee then a son, Nicholas.  When Nicholas was 2 he drowned.  It was horrific.  I found out at 9pm, waited an hour for Margo, then we drove all night to be with Jeannette.  She was lying on a bed, still.  Her fists were tightly clenching some of Nick's clothes, holding them close to her heart, clinging to his scent and memories of the little boy who only hours earlier was smiling and clinging to her.  She was silently crying and then bursts of  the deepest, guttural, heart wrenching animalistic sobs wailed from her soul, the pain from a literal broken heart.

She never healed from that. She couldn't.  But you go on because you have a life.  A new one, different.  She had another son Nathan, and a little girl Kiera.  Being a mom was what she most wanted in life.  She loved playing and reading with them.  Swimming and going to the park.  She spent hours making them magical birthday cakes every year.  She enjoyed nothing more than being with her kids all day.  She worked hard at her marriage because of this family, these children that brought her more joy than she ever imagined.

  


Many things in her life and her in marriage became difficult.  There came a point when she realized she had to position herself to solely provide for these 3 kids.  She then put in motion what would become some of  the hardest years of her life.........

part 2 - the internship - 12 years later