Denise Jarman:  

i have literally spent hours, days, and weeks mentally composing my life's update. trust me, it may be a novel someday. never in a million light years could or would i have imagined that this is where or how my life would be now. when my family moved to Libertyville, my freshman year, i had never lived anywhere for more than 2 years, and the 8 years i lived in lib. make it my hometown. when we moved to lib, i thought i was finally living like the typical all American family. we had 2 cars, a cat & dog, a colored tv and my dad had a job. we lived in a nice neighborhood, across the street from the "country club," the lake, golf course, and tennis courts.my mom played bridge, bowled, golfed.she fixed our breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and kept the house clean. my parents partied and traveled, went on cruises-i thought this is what life would be like. after lhs grad, i went to clc and had a blast (didn't we el, tum, and marge) and then transferred to southeast missouri for 1 year. i was homesick for my "friend" and friends & had a hard time adjusting to the slow pace of the south. i transferred to bradley univ in peoria, (which i refer to as the armpit of America) and graduated, with an elementary and special ed degree. 2 weeks after i graduated from bu, my parents moved to alexandria, va and i followed shortly thereafter. i didn't have a job-didn't want to teach-and didn't have any money. in alex, i met someone at church who knew someone from lib, dr. thompson, ellie thompson's '71 dad. dr. t worked with ken freund '71 so i called ken. k and i rode the same bus in cambridge so i knew who he was. rachel and i liked sitting behing k on the bus and looking at his eyes. if he even knew i was on the bus it was because i was the last one to get on at our stop, always running like a gazelle, with soaking wet hair, frozen nose hairs, and the fried egg sandwich my mom insisted i take with because i couldn't go to school without breakfast. anyway, dr. t gave me k's #, i called and told him i was the skinny blonde runner that smelled like eggs and we started dating. i put my special ed degree to work and got a job in sales with a company car and travel. i couldn't believe that i could go from va-dc-md in 15 minutes. i was overwhelmed to be living in our naton's capitol-seeing all of the pages in my history books actually right in front of my face. the opportunity of a lifetime came along when i was selected to be the assistant fund raising director for the congressional black caucus-(at that time there were only 11 members). I worked right on Capitol Hill. i'm sure the multicultural and diversified exposure i experienced in lib made me the perfect token for the job. i met a lot of people who were taking steps to make permanent footprints in our country's history. when my contract was over, i moved to st. louis (with my mom). once again, i didn't have a job, and i didn't have any money, but ken did, so we got married in 1981 and i moved back to va. i bought a 1972- 8 cyl dodge dart swinger just like the one i had in hs. i schmoked out every car that pulled up next to me thinking my car was a beater. once again, i put that spec. ed degree back to work by working for clinique-teaching women how to put make up on and take care of their skin so that their faces would feel and look like a baby's butt when they were 53. k & i got a cat, bought a house and we were/are blessed with the best kids in the whole wide world, ahren, 21, who just graduated from the university of richmond, and elisabeth, 20 who (i have decided) attends johns hopkins. when the kids were little i tried to instill random acts of kindness, and experience small town values as i had known them to be. we drove old people to doctor, chemo and hospital appts; the grocery store, picked up blind people and people at the bus stops or walking in inclement weather, picked up families walking with groceries, etc. i always wanted them to know how important it was to share and give to others. my kids went to a school out of our neighborhood boundaries because i wanted them to experience and be more prepared for the real world than i was. there were kids in their el school from more than 52 different countries, including bosnian refugees. before the morning Pledge of Allegiance was said,the kids on subsidized meals had to eat. quite different than our libertyville education experience. my kids were in a language immersion program that teaches the curriculum in spanish starting in first grade and goes through hs. it was a great opport. for a & e to learn our nation's 2nd language! we wanted to provide ahren and elisabeth every opportunity to live life to the fullest and experience all that they could, travel, history, nature, cultural diversity, and virginia has been a great place for them to grow up. i can't say i was a "hockey mom" but our lives were filled with cross country and track meets, soccer, baseball and basketball games, drum, clarinet, and piano, and dance lessons recitals. we visited our families several times a year in st. louis and l.a. and every year we went to hawaii-for me to be beeaaaach rejuvenated. i tutored high risk kids and volunteered as a teacher's aide; i maintained the "tropical rainforest" in the school foyer and bred, hand-fed, trained and sold exotic birds to raise $ for the food fund for the el school. we had our baseball and comic book retail/wholesale business until 1998. our life rolled along just like and we rolled with the punches. the kids were fine, a few surgeries and calamities here and there, but things were ok. in 1998, i worked at hospice and with a group for people with recurrent cancer. i wanted to understand and learn everything from how cancer patients felt psychologically and physically, and to learn how to listen to and respect their feelings. i learned how to care for people going through this devastating and horrific experience. i sat with people and held their hand at hospice so that they were not alone when they died. it was an unbelievable and very valuable experience. working at hospice helped prepare me with the physical medical skills needed to care for my mom. my mom had breast cancer when she was 30, and it recurred 33 years later, in 1999, when she was 63. i left my family in va and spent most of the year in st. louis and took care of her. she was very sick, and very valiant. i had always promised to take her to hawaii. in july, 99, k,a,e, and i took her to hawaii right before she passed away. i strapped her to me, and held onto her, and she walked on my feet as i walked backwards onto the plane. she got to see hawaii! when we got back from hawaii, my mom went to my brother mark's home in memphis. she knew by going to memphis, that i would take leave my family in va and go to memphis to take care of her. selfishly by doing this, she could be with both of her kids. ken and the kids flew to tn every w/e. 10/26, mom peacefully passed away while mark and i were with her. i bathed her, painted her nails and put put her makeup on-including bright red lipstick to match her nail polish, put on her favorite dress from hawaii, and red sandals. i sang to her and prayed all the while. She looked radiant when two men from the univ of tenn came and wrapped her in a purple velvet shroud. she went off on her next journey. she wanted her body donated to science at the univ of tenn. i was totally sure that losing my mom was the most devastating and heart wrenching hurt i would ever feel, until September 11, 2001 at 8 am. my (then) 13 year old daughter, elisabeth underwent what some might refer to as a routine scoliosis surgery for curvature of the spine. e ...Expand for more