2023/40 JEN HOLE'S LAST SONG

Good Friday started for us in Ireland this year, and ended in a ferry journey across the water and into Wales. That crossing brought to us one of life’s most treasured memories in a trip bursting with magical moments. It brought us one last visit with Jen.

We first knew the Holes and Daniels as stalwarts in the gospel when my brother spent three years in Wales. But my personal relationship with them began when our son served in the Bristol England Mission, which included South Wales. When we came to Wales to retrieve him after his mission, we gathered in a small church in Swansea with fellow saints. They encircled our boy, quite literally, and sang to him. 

Well keep a welcome in the hillside.

Well keep a welcome in the Vales

This land you knew will still be singing

When you come home again to Wales.

This land of song will keep a welcome

And with a love that never fails,

Well kiss away each hour of hiraeth

When you come home again to Wales.

 

We listened, watched, and wept. So did our boy. Every Welshperson I’ve ever met knows that song.

A few years later, when we were traveling with Seatrek 2001, performing the oratorio I helped write, we stayed with Jen and her family. I performed a separate concert for the people of Swansea. When I finished, someone in the audience rose and started singing. The whole crowd of them rose and joined in… "We’ll keep a welcome in the hillside….” Once again I watched and wept.

Through the years since then Jen has visited in the US and we have been able to reconnect. Years between embraces melt away every time.

THE HOLE KIDS
Nancy, Glenn, David and Paul

Jen and Jeff and the kids

The Hole Gang at Christmas dinner
(I borrowed all these photos from their social media pages)

Sisters

Jeff and Jen

Less than two weeks ago, when we boarded the plane to visit my sister in London, I messaged Jen to see if we might meet up at some point. She responded that she was in hospital and would regrettably miss seeing us this time. She had cancer. Not wanting to push anything, I thought perhaps she had had a bone marrow transplant and could not have visitors.

We spent five lovely days with my sister and her husband, who are serving a temple mission in London. We were able to visit Cornwall and St Fagan’s in Cardiff.  Then Ann Marie and Mike went on to London for a few days’ vacation (the temple was closed for two weeks), and Dave and I went on to journey through Ireland. As the time to board a ferry and return to Wales approached I had a recurring desire to see Jen, so much so that I contacted her son Glenn to see how she was doing and if there was even a small chance to stop and wave at her through the hospital window. We would shift our plans however necessary. Glenn, who lives is Canada, contacted his sister Nancy who contacted us. It turns out Jen was not in a good way. She had taken a turn for the worst in her last planned chemo treatment and they decided they could not do anything more to save her. They had begun palliative care. 

Nancy talked to the hospital staff and arranged to get us in, even though it was nearly midnight, so we could see her mum. Nancy met us at the door, a white hospital blanket wrapped around her tired shoulders. We wept when we hugged. I knew, then, that this was holy ground we were walking on. We weaved through the hallways to Jen’s little hospital room. There was a small thin mattress on the floor by the doorway, evidence of children whose love and devotion were part of their eternal bond with their mother. Her grown children made sure she was not left alone each night, and  took turns spending the night on that small cushion on the floor. 

Jen was sleeping. The faint light of the machines around her reflected off her hairless head.

“Mum. Mum, you have visitors.”

Nancy bent over her mother and woke her gently, then moved aside to I could bring my face closer to hers. She opened her heavy eyelids, then raised her brows and whispered; “Cori? Cori?”

I laughed the laughter of friends happily reunited.

“Yes, Jen. Yes, its me! Dave and I came to see you.”

She looked endlessly straight into my eyes. A long, comfortable, eternal gaze. I could not move my eyes from looking into hers, that beautiful welcoming blue that has always been so inviting. Her lips repeated over and over. “I can’t believe you came.” I giggled, “Of course we did. We love you. We love you.” I had to stop myself from repeating it too much… as if there could be too many “I love you’s.”

She asked if I would sing her a song. Her sister Vanessa, and her husband Gary were with us, virtually, through a tiny phone screen. She had been keeping vigil with her sister for days, as were Jen’s children who lived too far away to touch. They asked for a couple songs I wrote; Sisters and Idaho Wind. I sang them, stumbling through them acapella and in far too high a key for my aging vocal chords. I leaned in close to her, almost heart to heart, our eyes never breaking the connection. She looked over at one point and saw Dave in the dark corner. “David! Thank you for coming.”

It reminded me of the scene in Sense and Sensibility when Colonel Brandon had brought Marianne’s mother to her as she lay near death. Marianne sees him in the corner and whispers, “Colonel Brandon. Thank you.” That alone was enough for all the effort it had taken him to reunite them. My David would change any plan, and drive after a very long day to get us to the hospital, because his heart is that good and selfless. Dave slipped into the dim light and took Jenn’s warm, soft hand. “Thank you.” She repeated to him.

“Remember Jen,” I said, “When we came to stay with you and you kicked Nancy out of her bed so you could give it us? She had to sleep upstairs with the boys. Thank you, Nancy!”

Jen nodded her head, the corners of her mouth turning up. I could hear Vanessa's laughter through tears from the speaker on the phone on the table over Jenn's knees.

“And then, remember when you came to the states at Christmastime and we went to the Tabernacle Choir Concert in Salt Lake? And we got our friend to take us all down into the basement of the Conference Center where the giant organ pipes are housed?”

Again, her chest rose and fell with quickness, and she nodded.

“We may not have done a whole lot, but what we have done sure has been wonderful, hasn’t it?”

She was too weak to speak many words, but the language of love sang a full oratorio that night. 

She was getting too weary, and we knew we should go.

“Would it  be ok if we prayed together?” I asked. 

And so I prayed over my friend, Jen Hole. Prayed words to represent all of us. Asked our Lord to ease her journey. Asked him to bless her family. I held one hand, Nancy held the other. It was like Jenn was a conduit of love.

Afterward, when I told her that we would be going, I asked if we could all sing one last song together. 

“Today is Good Friday, you know. The saddest of all days in history. Yesterday would have been the day our Lord had washed feet, broken bread, and given a new commandment. This woman lying in a hospital bed near Swansea exemplified the fulfilment of that commandment. She lived it purely and wholly.”

I started with the tune and the words… As I have loved you…. The others joined in, Nancy from her faithful spot beside her mum, Vanessa and Gary from their devoted chairs in Utah, Dave and I standing on the opposite side of her bed… all of circled around this pillar of love…

Love one another,

This New Commandment, Love One Another

By this shall men know ye are my disciples

If ye have love, one to another.

I lowered my ear down near Jen’s faintly moving lips, to hear the whisper of her last song.

Today, Easter Sunday, Jen flew up to her Lord.

If she had any say in the matter, I believe she would have chosen this very day, because of the message of eternal hope it offers.

Faithful to the end. Devoted and loving to the end. Beloved even still.

I called Nancy this evening to see if she was ok. The family had gathered in her house for Easter dinner, prepared by her loving sister-in-law. Jenn had known they had made plans to share this meal. Nancy said she kind of thought her mum may have sped things up so she would not interrupt the gathering of her most precious treasures in her journey back home. As it turned out, Paul and Nancy had her hand at the very end, both of them having dedicated each night committed to never leaving their mother alone. David had gone to fetch their dad, Jeff. Glenn was aching, from far across the sea, to jump through space and be there with the family. Each of her children and her sister kept vigil, in every way they could, from where they had to be. Thank the Lord for modern technology that makes such a thing possible.

I suggested to Nancy that perhaps Jen took the big leap when she did so she herself could join them. It was the safest way to get there. No doubt she did.

Jen is fine, I’m sure of it. She is feeling so much better and is connecting with her longed-for mother and others. Now it's up to the rest of us to allow the Comforter to do what he has promised to do, for us, and every other soul who knew and loved Jennifer Hole.

Tonight we are feeling a goodly portion of hiraeth. A longing for what feels like home.  I expect that is a bit of us longing for heaven. Keep a place for us there, dear Jen. Until we meet again.

Her finest treasures

In her happy place. Surrounded by family.