It is hard to know how properly to word this tribute – but certainly nothing I say could embrace everything Jenny was.  Jenny, a friend from high school, took her own life this Summer.  She was talented, kind, a deep thinker, artistic and sensitive.  She was known to many in the various circles she mixed in, and most recently resided in Edinburgh.  I don’t know so much about her life up to when she died but know that she was troubled.  The song at her funeral, chosen by her parents, was ‘Vincent’, after the artist, by Don Maclean.  I’ve always been moved by the words, but now they take on a new meaning – it is not for our madness that we are mocked but for our sanity: the world does not appreciate the deep thinkers of this world – it doesn’t have time, or it is too scared about what the thinkers might have to say (the truth?).

What is also sad about Jenny’s death is that she probably felt alone when she died; and yet there are more close to her situation than is realized (I speak very personally here).  The lyrics, which I now associate with Jenny’s life and death, make me think more deeply about my own life.  Some people can live not thinking about what life means or what their place is in it – and some are very happy with their place in it.  One day I hope I will be; thinking deeply and reflecting is at times not rewarding – it brings pain and unkindness from other people.  Jenny had much more to offer than me; I wish she was still here.

Vincent – lyrics:

Starry, starry night
Paint your palette blue and gray
Look out on a summer’s day
With eyes that know the darkness in my soul
Shadows on the hills
Sketch the trees and the daffodils
Catch the breeze and the winter chills
In colors on the snowy linen land

Now I understand what you tried to say to me
And how you suffered for your sanity
And how you tried to set them free
They would not listen, they did not know how
Perhaps they’ll listen now

Starry, starry night
Flaming flowers that brightly blaze
Swirling clouds in violet haze
Reflect in Vincent’s eyes of China blue
Colors changing hue
Morning fields of amber grain
Weathered faces lined in pain
Are soothed beneath the artist’s loving hand

Now I understand what you tried to say to me
And how you suffered for your sanity
And how you tried to set them free
They would not listen, they did not know how
Perhaps they’ll listen now

For they could not love you
But still your love was true
And when no hope was left inside
On that starry, starry night
You took your life as lovers often do
But I could have told you, Vincent
This world was never meant
For one as beautiful as you

Starry, starry night
Portraits hung in empty halls
Frameless heads on nameless walls
With eyes that watch the world and can’t forget
Like the strangers that you’ve met
The ragged men in ragged clothes
A silver thorn, a bloody rose
Lie crushed and broken on the virgin snow

Now I think I know what you tried to say to me
And how you suffered for your sanity
And how you tried to set them free
They would not listen, they’re not listening still
Perhaps they never will