A Word from Mom

Mom wrote a letter about Jolene to send to family. I asked for her permission to share it with you tonight:

I wanted to tell you a little bit about Jolene. Her illness was Borderline Personality Disorder. When she was happy, she was delightful to be with and fun to be around. She was very caring, kind and compassionate.

Although she had learning difficulties, she was highly intelligent and often made profound observations. She wrote wonderful poems.

She enjoyed watching the Discovery and History channels and Animal Planet. She would share what she had learned in her conversations. She especially enjoyed Sci-Fi television and movies.

At church the last few years, she felt invisible and found it hard to strike up a conversation. However, out on the street she seemed to find it easy to talk to people, and often gave her last few coins to someone who was needy.

At other times, she was very unhappy, and talked to us at great length about the things that were troubling her, often telling the same sad story over and over.

A group called Infomercial Television Ventures convinced her that she could earn several thousand dollars a week. She invested in this and other groups like it, and was heavily in debt. I believe this added to the final despair that was too much to bear any longer.

On the morning of March 13, Darlene talked with her, and they were joyfully planning her birthday celebration the coming Sunday. However, during the afternoon, she had an argument with her boyfriend, and seemed to be very troubled when a friend came by later in the day. We wonder when she decided to end her life. The coroner was unable to ascertain the time of death, and put it at the time she was discovered the following Monday.

She had so much to offer. It is such a tragedy.