Jean Kerrigan: a master at paradox

For a woman who had strong family and community ties, with Jean Kerrigan there were no strings attached.

Indeed, Jean didn’t have the traditional family, the nuclear cluster of spouse and child; instead she embraced an extended family, projected that sense of family into her workplace and onto the community at large.

Never giving birth or even owning a pet, she was a second mother to many, especially her nieces and nephews. They say that they wouldn’t have had a childhood, if it weren’t for “Aunt Jean,” as their own mother often took second shifts as a nurse to sustain her large family. But Jean and Marie, “Irish twins” with less that a year between them, always faced life together.

Incredibly rigid about her sense of place on Nobody Road, on the border of Tusten and Cochecton, she was quick to share it. Niece Karen and nephew Jeff say that after painting their initials on Aunt’s Jean’s new roof, they were pleased with her reaction of “that’s interesting.” I imagine that Jean got a kick out of seeing those symbols from Route 97 for years and enjoyed the confusion that a passerby might have when trying to figure out what was emblazoned on her roof.

Those passerbys might have known or suspected that it was a symbol of love, joyfully given and received, that Jean freely broadcasted and that others harbored for her.

But just as she was easygoing and gave everyone no-strings-attached affection, she would, as niece Anita phrased it, “put her finger down and straighten me out.” Indeed, at one time or another, Jean probably straightened a whole lot of us out. For Jean didn’t mince words. At the same time, she did not tear people apart for their limitations, even as she was willing to name them.

Which is to say that Jean was able to navigate paradoxes: no family of her own, large family that was hers and hers alone; maintenance of a solitary existence, in highly significant relationships with hundreds of people and dozens of organizations.

And it is not surprising that with her death, we find ourselves in that place of paradox. We are happy that Jean is safe, not tooling around and insisting on physical independence, teetering more and more every day. Simultaneously, we are unsure how we will make our way without this stable presence in our lives.

When you have talked to someone every day for 82 years, what do you do when they are no longer there to listen? To whom do you turn for advice, when the person who is able to see all sides is now unavailable for counsel? How do you maintain easy family relations, lightheartedness, good humor and positive perspective when the impetus for that energy has moved on?

And how do you gather the gossip, know where the good stories lie or what needs to be investigated or patched up when your source is no longer available?

Those paradoxes, the opposing realities that Jean was able to navigate so masterfully, are the very ones that we now have to navigate alone. I can only think that we will find a path through our loss and grief by recalling how patiently and joyously Jean lived her life and the lessons that she, in her non-assuming way, was present to teach us.

More specifically, and getting right to the point, which Jean always appreciated: we will miss her terribly and, in her absence, in our daily lives, faithfully and always, we will simply and continuously remember. We will remember that she always remembered us.

We will recognize and name a final paradox in her amazing and fruitful life: Jean lived as a humble human being and, at the same time, she was an angel at the heart of the Upper Delaware River Valley, an angel at the heart of us all.

As we bid our final farewell and prepare for her Mass and Christian Burial, we accept the gift of her giving spirit and understand that Jean achieved everlasting life, in our love and in our hearts, for all of our remaining days on earth and forever more.

God Bless you Jean, and thanks.

[Jean Kerrigan, September 26, 1926 to July 19, 2009, worked at The River Reporter for 22 years.]