This particular memory is very meaningful to me, and even though Jayne was just a teenager at the time, I think it also says a lot about who she was as a human being.

My mom died when I was 22 and Jayne was a junior in high school. Of course it was a devastating experience for me, and for so many of us. At the end of the funeral, the attendees gathered in the church waited to be told what to do. The minister came to Dad and me in the front row, and asked if we wanted to stand at the door and greet people as they filed out. My dad’s immediate and startled answer was, of course, “No!” (He's not a very social person in the best of times, and by the end of the funeral he was just entirely drained in every way.) So he and I walked quickly down the aisle to the exit, the faces in the packed pews around us just a blur. Outside was the same bleak, slushy March weather we’d had all week. Dad couldn’t get home fast enough. I was a little more conflicted. It did seem grueling to greet every person as they left the church, and we were already wrung out. But I also wanted some company, some comfort. Tom, my uncle’s partner at the time, had our getaway car waiting, idling in front of the church, and we jumped in. And then, just before I slammed the car door shut, here came Jayne running to the car out of nowhere -- she just slid in the back seat and hugged me tight while we both cried quietly. She held me all the way home, and then we went inside to take a break before heading over to my aunt and uncle’s house next door where everyone would gather with everyone for the post-funeral get-together. Tom dropped us off and headed next door. Soon my dad’s friend Michael showed up, and they shared a bourbon at the dinner table, while Jayne and I relaxed on the floor in the living room. She held me and stroked my hair, and let the tears fall, until we were all ready to go next door and see all the people at the gathering. I don't remember talking much. There wasn't much to say. She was just there, present with me, deeply loving and accepting, and it was exactly what I needed. And I don’t know what I would have done if she hadn’t been there in that moment when I needed someone so badly -- just to be there. She had run away from the rest of her family, out of the church to jump in the car with me -- I don't know how she knew I needed that -- I didn’t even know that’s what I needed. She just knew, and she just did it.

I often think of this experience with Jayne in moments when my own self-consciousness or fear keeps me from reaching out to people who are hurting or lonely. Many of us are familiar with the voices in our heads that say “What if she doesn’t want me there?” or “What if I feel silly?” or “What if she just wants to be alone?” or “I won’t know what to say. I’ll be uncomfortable.” “What if s/he doesn’t like me that much? Or I make a fool of myself?” Jayne was so good at ignoring those voices. She had a clarity of purpose in what it meant to treat others well, and she didn’t let silly self-doubts or self-centeredness get in the way of that. She put herself on the line, and her heart on her sleeve. Sometimes she got hurt by this. I know she did; we talked sometimes about what happened when her enthusiastic openness was rebuffed, or received coolly by someone she knew. But I think she knew that this was the trade-off. The cost of being emotionally fearless is that sometimes you get a little bruised. But it’s not a permanent injury -- you just pick yourself up and brush yourself off, and go on doing what you do. Ultimately, the pay-offs can be so much greater. It takes courage to go on without a change in your attitude or how you treat people. And Jayne had the courage.