“She made broken look beautiful and strong look invincible. She walked with the universe on her shoulders and made it look like a pair of wings.” — Ariana Dancu
Yesterday, I found out that one of my dearest and best friends from high school, Jill K. Gies, had passed away. What made this sad news worse was that she had died in 2019, and I never knew about it ~ I had lost touch with her many years ago, and had no way before, of contacting her.
LIVING 9,060 MILES AWAY FROM MY HOMETOWN of LINCOLN, NEBRASKA, FOR THE LAST 28 YEARS, HAS TENDED TO CREATE FOR ME A SORT OF ISOLATIONISM FROM THE PAST, AND THOSE I CARED ABOUT FROM THE PAST
Jill was one of my best friends in High School, at Lincoln High (The Links!) — The Graduating Class of 1983. We had many good times together, and shared many tough times as well (i.e., the typical high school drama that is inevitable). Jill was always there for me when I needed a friend to talk to — she NEVER let me down, and she ALWAYS cheered me up. I hope, that I was the same kind of friend for her.
Unfortunately, after graduation from high school, we lost touch. I attempted a few times to locate her by searching her name on the ‘infant-Google’ Search Engine of the early 1990s, but I found very little information — Surprisingly, one thing the Google search results were correct about, however, was that she had moved to England for a short time, but besides that, I had no other information, and no way to contact her. Nevertheless, I was still hoping one day to be in contact with her.
Time passed by and life got in the way.
Imagine for a moment, a table, and in the middle of the table are a bunch of marbles packed close together ~ That is you and all of your close high school friends. Then imagine, a bigger marble (representing graduation) dropping from the sky, hitting the pack of smaller marbles, and then, scattering most of the marbles all over the table, and a few go flying off from the table and go bouncing randomly around on the floor. That, I think, represents what happens to the close friendships after graduation: We drift apart, and we are not very closely connected any more. I think that I’m that marble that flew off from the table, and drifted far away from most of my old friends, or, my “old marbles”, as I respectfully think of my old friends.
If I may continue the explanation of my analogy a bit further ~ If your marbles (friends) are important to you, then never lose your marbles, I mean, your friends. You never get time back to do something yesterday, or to do last week, or, may the Universe forgive me, to do 40 years ago! If someone means something special to you, celebrate them, and let them know how much you care about them, and never lose contact with them.
It was very strange, and highly coincidental, that the only reason I thought about Jill yesterday, was because I’m attempting to minimize-my-life, and I’m going through many, many boxes of documents and papers I’ve collected & saved, even stuff stashed since high school.
I came across our LHS Honors commemorative booklet, and I saw Jill’s name on the Honors Role list– She was always an excellent student ~ Very competitive and outgoing. Therefore, that is the reason I decided, one more time, to do a Google Search for Jill, and regrettably, this time, the search results were shockingly horrible and sad — I had no idea that Jill had passed away.
Leave it to say, seeing the first search result of Jill, being an Obituary page from a Lincoln funeral home, was like a kick in the teeth ~ Shocked and deeply devastated come close to what I was feeling. Her obituary mentioned that she had a brief battle with cancer, but I don’t know any other details.
I suspect, and I hope, that Jill’s family and friends have had time to come to an understanding and have found some peace regarding this loss: For me, this is brand new sad news. For me, it is as if she just passed away.
I saw this quote on the Internet by an anonymous source, it said: “Sometimes your heart needs more time to accept what your mind already knows.” And, I think this fits perfectly for me now, and the process of eventually accepting this news — it will just take some time.
I could say: “If ONLY, I would have tried harder to keep in touch…” — I’m sure many of you know that thought. I wish I would have had the opportunity to get to know Jill as an adult. Nevertheless, I would guess that Jill was as ambitious, kind, sweet, and giving, as she was in high school.
I read in her obituary bio that she was a teacher at Lincoln Southeast high school: I bet she was a great teacher. Socrates said, “I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think.” I believe that Jill would have brought out the best in her students, giving them the opportunity to ‘expand their minds’ and to think critically about what they were learning — and her students would have Jill to thank for that. Many of Jill’s students left comments on her obituary guestbook, and they were all thankful and grateful to have Jill as their teacher: Jill made a lasting impression on her students. That is the same way I felt about a few of my high school teachers, like Mrs. Keller. I could never understand why students came up with the nickname for this wonderful teacher, of “Killer” Keller. Sure, Mrs. Keller was tough and expected a lot, but she really cared that we learned: I loved my etymology class, taught by Mrs Keller.
I wish I would have had the opportunity to share the, ‘What’s happening in your life since high school?’, question, with Jill. At Lincoln High, Jill knew me as the Photography Editor of the LHS Year Book, so she knew that I was crazy about Photography. What she probably never knew about me is that I became a Photographer and made it my way of life. I would have been very excited to have shared my photography with Jill — She liked my work in high school, and she probably would have enjoyed seeing my work as I have progressed over time as a Photographer and Artist.
Because I have always thought of Jill as a BRIGHT STAR in my life, and I am so grateful that I had at least the years in high school to know her, I want to dedicate one of my own Spacescape Art Photographs, titled, “Yellow Dwarf Star HD 17362 and the Eclipse”, as an image to honor Jill.
I think the bright star in this art piece is emblematic of her personal bright light. And, don’t let the “dwarfness” of a star fool you: Dwarf stars are very dense, and make a BIG DENT in space-time, compared to stars like the Sun. In a symbolic sense, dwarf stars leave a big impression in space-time, just like Jill left a big impression on everyone who knew her. The eclipse in the artwork is symbolic of the dark-feeling of ‘loss’.
Perchance, Jill’s spirit is out there among the stars: I hope so. After all, as Carl Sagan said: “The universe is a pretty big place. If it’s just us, seems like an awful waste of space.” Thus, there must be room for all of us to explore the Universe in one way or another.
I wondered what I could do to make an artistic remembrance for Jill, and to make it easier for other of her school friends to know of this sad news. I had such a difficult time over the years to find any information about her, and maybe other friends also have had a difficult time as well. I hope this blog post will help other friends who had lost contact with Jill, make it easier to find this information about Jill, as the Internet is simply a very crowded, and a very difficult place to navigate at times.
NAWFAL ABSTRACT ART PHOTOS 
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