18" x 24" Deep sided canvas
I met Jenni 35 years ago. She had just moved to town and her husband practiced medicine at the same hospital where I worked as a nurse. Several people told me she and I needed to meet because we were so much alike. I am not sure how it came about but we did meet and we soon found out we did have a lot in common. We had small children about the same age, we were both nurses and we loved some of the same books and authors and yoga. Jenni was raised in the Quaker faith. She understood meditation and the importance of quietly seeking out your own relationship with God. She found a very structured Bible Study in a nearby city and asked me to join her in attending. We traveled every week with our two and three year olds in tow and our friendship deepened during our weekly trips from Athens to Huntsville. Over the years we spent many wonderful times together, one in particular was our trip to Hawaii together. We visited several beaches, ate a lot of wonderful food and visited with some of her long time friends who were just excellent hosts. She was like a kid, everything was was exciting to her. Every day was an experience. I have never met anyone quite like her. She was calming to be around, laid back and mystical. Jenni could write the most meaningful letters and notes. Recently I was going through some old photos and letters and trying to “down size”. Many things were easy to throw away but when I found letters from her I could not find a way to part with them. Each one was full of wisdom and a spiritual theme that only she could put into words. She truly made you want to explore the spiritual realm more fully. I have one particular card where she told me she was so thankful we were friends and at the end she said, “Isn’t is wonderful that we will be friends throughout Eternity!”
Jenni became a very well know artist in Birmingham, Alabama. She owned a gallery named Jennifer Harwell Art. She painted a lot of scenes from her home state of Oregon. She painted large and colorful. Her art is well know throughout the area. Once I painted a painting of her in her gallery from a photo I had seen and the last time I visited her it was on her mantel. I was honored.
It is hard to believe that this August Jenni will have been gone for seven years. It was not easy to let go of a beautiful friend and watch her suffer and leave this world too soon. I held on to her words and our times together and appreciate the fact that our lives intersected.
I was asked to speak at her funeral, along with my husband. I will never forget I went out on our deck overlooking the lake and asked her to speak to me. I said, “Jenni, just one more time, let me know you are at peace. If there is any way you can communicate to me ——I am here.” I know this sounds crazy but please don’t write me off as a nut. I knew if anyone could find a way it would be her. I promise you ——-a large yellow butterfly started flying around me. I laughed out loud. I just knew it was a message from her. I stayed in the swing on the back porch and watched as it flitted about. I did not want to break the spell. I said, “I knew you could do it!” I walked in the house and told my husband, Audie that Jenni had just visited me in the form of a yellow butterfly and I had a sense of peace. You would need to know my husband. My husband is a very reasonable man. He has always been the more conservative one of our relationship. For years he only wore blue or white buttoned down collared shirts. He is very smart and very analytical, on the other hand I was more of a bohemian dresser and was a little more "other worldly" in thought. Audie once told me I found God behind every bush. I told him it was because I looked. Anyway on this particular day he just looked at me and smiled. It was a smile I recognized. It said, "she is a little crazy". About an hour later he called to me from the front yard to come outside. As I walked out the door I saw a large yellow butterfly flying around and and around him. The look on his face was priceless. I will have to say it was hard for me not to gloat. Have you ever had an experience where you just “knew” something to be true. It was not something you could explain or even pretend to make sense of it but one of those mystical things that makes you feel like the whole universe is smiling at you. That was this day.
At the funeral we shared our story with Jenni’s husband, Donnie. Donnie stared at us with tears in his eyes and said “Jenni’s favorite thing was yellow butterflies.” Yellow butterflies have become pretty special to me now and each time I see one I say, “I will see you in Eternity” and smile.
