NCSSM - Jennifer Bowman - from J. Davis

[JDDavis905 at aol.com]

Dear classmates from the class of '86,

As I sit here consumed with grief over Jennifer Bowman's death, I feel 
compelled to tell you all a brief and recent story.   As many of you know, Jennifer 
and I had been extremely close at NCSSM and during our freshman year at UNC.  
As is frequently the case, time and distance created a thin wedge of 
alienation between us, but this rift dissipated immediately when I read her page for 
our reunion book and   learned of all her suffering.   I then sat in my little 
cabin in the mountains sobbing, aching for her and her family, marveling at her 
courage, ruing our illogical separation, loathing her illogical disease, 
bemoaning my epistemological limitations.

When I saw Jennifer at our reunion picnic, she soaked me in that incredible 
warm smile of hers and held me tightly and poured so much love into me...an 
utterly unsurprising act, given that goodness and kindness and affection were her 
essence.   At the Dubose house later that night, I knelt on the floor and 
held her and spoke to her in her wheelchair.   I offered to get her a drink and 
she declined.   I immediately assumed that I had crossed a line, thinking that 
alcohol would be taboo for someone who was fighting brain cancer, but she 
sensed the confusion on my face and informed me that she could not drink...at all. 
  She had been unable to consume liquids for nearly a year since her 
operation and had to receive hydration from an external source.   I fought back the 
mammoth lump that formed in my throat and commanded dessication in my eyes...and 
I hugged her again instead.   We changed the subject and acknowledged 
together that all of us from the class of '86 are mutually, inextricably bound 
together in the most beautiful of ways, having undergone a freakishly incredible 
formation together that was part mystical, part intellectual, part 
emotional...and all wonderful.   We smiled and laughed and made a powerful affirmation to 
re-establish contact and to not to allow time to ravage our friendship again.

True to her word, Jennifer wrote to me immediately after the reunion.   This 
was the first handwritten letter that I had received in years.   As I pored 
through that familiar scrawl of hers and let myself bask in the beautiful warmth 
that is the undeniable product of twenty-two years of familiarity and 
friendship, I marveled at how powerful our intimacy had been and was and became 
grateful that I would have the opportunity to walk with her henceforth through her 
illness, to send back to her fiercely the same support she granted to me so 
many years ago.   Jennifer explained how typing was difficult for her, but in 
typical Jennifer fashion, she confronted this setback with grace and 
determination and vowed that she would embrace epistolary relationships in the 
old-fashioned way.

I sent her an email directly in which I expressed my love for her and my 
excitement that we had rediscovered that amazing relationship that we had had so 
many years ago in the span of an instant.   I was careful to match her every 
expression of gratitude and affection with equal potency.   I clicked the "send" 
button...this was on September 25th...

Colin called me yesterday when I was driving back from the firing range and 
told me that Jennifer had died.   I held my voice steady when speaking with 
him, but it began to crack nonetheless and I hastened to end that conversation.   
I pulled over to the side of the road and cried.   I drove up the mountain in 
a stupor, trying to wrap my brain around the death of someone so beautiful 
and kind and strong.   I then called my partner Terry to talk to him about what 
had happened.  He placed me on hold and went to grab my mail...and there was a 
second letter from Jennifer there, dated September 28th, three days before 
she died, this letter arriving to me from beyond her grave.   

In her final missive, Jennifer gave no indication that she was about to die.  
 Her discourse was full of optimism and patience and minute details regarding 
her history over those long years of absence.   It was fully and abundantly a 
writing that set forth a stubborn commitment to our friendship, an ardent 
adoration of her peers from NCSSM and a text in which she stunned me with one 
final, powerful burst of love...and closure, in spite of her unawareness of her 
proximity to death.   In the context of her destiny and the final moments of 
her life, this letter has forced my doubting mind to reconsider providence and 
to wonder again what sort of magic has been permanently woven into the 
intersubjectivity of the graduates of the class of 1986.

Jennifer died peacefully in her sleep on the morning of October 1st.   She 
and Jim had gone to a wedding reception the night before and she had a wonderful 
time.   When Jim awakened on the morning of October 1st, Jennifer was 
breathing without any difficulty.   He went to get her medicine and returned ten 
minutes later.   By the time he returned, Jennifer had stopped breathing and 
neither Jim nor the paramedics could resuscitate her. 

Please remember the Bowman family and the Ebright families in your thoughts 
or prayers.   Since her services were held today (Jim apologized to us for not 
having the strength to make any more calls after her death), I think it would 
be appropriate for those of us who knew her and loved her to memorialize her 
somehow online (although I have no idea how to do anything of the sort).

Much love to you all, my lifelong friends,

Jamey Davis
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