Jennifer

Jennifer Wollschlager 5/8/1962-7/13/2023

Jennifer and I met 36 years ago this Memorial Day weekend.

A young woman who crossed my field of vision several times during the day of the Alexandria Jazz festival. Towards the end of the day I got my bike and moved towards the exit.

There she was in front of me, leaving by the same exit.

A voice in my head said “If you don’t introduce yourself you will regret it for the rest of your life.”

So I did that, and found we had a few things in common. A love of music, and the Western US.

We met up a few more times over the coming year. Music and sightseeing in DC.

We used Metro a lot, she lived at the far end of the red line and I lived a mile and a bit from the King street station . I would ride with her to her end and then ride back home.

Lots of late night walking home. Got me to buy a car.

We dated for a while and then made the decision to move in together.

I knew she had diabetes and health issues as a result. She impressed me with her strength and determination to find the cause of her problems and solve them.

She would have a bad spell of health and end up in the hospital.

She remained forward looking , it will get better.

Several times I was taken aside by a doctor and told that she is not going to last long, are you sure you want to be in this relationship? I was dumbfounded by this attitude from a professional ‘healer’.

Jennifer had kidney failure and underwent dialysis , once at the hands of doctors who thought they knew her case.

And then when it turned out they were wrong, and a helpful nurse pointed her to a better care team. It turned out that she had some more time, but enrolled in a kidney transplant list.

When her kidneys finally failed and she went on dialysis. A pretty grim time.

A wait for a transplant was excruciating , a couple of false alarms, back in 1993 you carried a pager.

On Jan 2 , 1994 Jennifer got the page, and on Jan 3 she received a kidney pancreas transplant.

Her rebirthday we took to calling that day.

It took a while for her to heal from the surgeries, then the long path of healing from the damage of diabetes. A transplant is a treatment, not a cure.

Jennifer looked towards the future and welcomed positive progress and believed that setbacks would be overcome.

Jennifer began to do quilting and sewing with some pretty fancy machines. We enabled each others craft hobbies.

She enjoyed teaching the children of friends how to sew and do craft projects.

Jennifer made many baby quilts for family, friends and coworkers.

She was also involved with projects along with her fellow ASG members for heart patients.

Throughout the years we attended many concerts, plays, and operas. She got me to go to shows that I never would have. It was a shared love of ours that gave us great pleasure.

Jennifer and I collect art and craft, and she has been a wonderful curator of our museum home.

We traveled when we could, mostly in the Western US, where our hearts found joy in the vast openness.

We took on the task of dog ownership, Jennifer loved to walk first one, and then later our two dogs.

Many miles a day in the early morning. Our fur kids got lots of love.

Around 2017 things started to change for her. It became harder to walk the dogs over their accustomed routes. More doctor visits and tests, but mostly no answers.

She took exercise classes at the local rec center, with the same Jennifer, future looking positive attitude.

She started focusing on reading and joined a book club and had a lot of fun with that.

The annoyances of growing older weighed heavy on her, but she tried to not let it get her down.

It was never easy, and she grew frustrated , but still she persevered.

I do not regret the love I have for Jennifer, the voice was right.

Please consider being a transplant donor, you could give someone a new chance at life.