Blog for Jennifer Day

This may be one of the very few completely genuine posts I will ever blog.

My cousin Taryn has brilliantly rallied the Garlock troops and declared April 22nd

Blog for Jennifer Wahlquist Day.

Plainly put, my cousin Jennifer is extremely sick.

I love her and am praying and hoping and praying some more that she gets better soon.

I first met Jennifer in the eighties around the time she married my cousin Todd.

The cute couple then:

The cute couple now:

As the first (maybe second?) marriage and wedding in the large Garlock family (within my younger generation), it was a big deal.

Almost as big as her hair at the time.

Their engagement picture was up on our fridge and I would stand there and stare at it, completely mesmerized. To me, she looked exactly like the only Barbie I owned and liked, which was Tropical Barbie. Upon meeting her, I discovered some more um, less shallow things about her which furthered my Jennifer-mesmerization. First of all, she was extremely kind. When she talked to me, she was truly interested in what I had to say. I was in elementary school mind you, and that didn't happen often with people I just met. I remember being told how smart she was by some of my family members and after she told me how much she loved math, science and computers, I was convinced. She really is an extremely intelligent woman. Among other things, in the past several years, she has built and started a charter school from the ground up because she, with good reason, wasn't completely satisfied with the public school system. She's a mover and a shaker and a do-er. She's an inspiration. Mainly because she's super good at Nertz, the card game in which my Garlock family tree is deeply rooted. Nertz trumps kindness and smarts in our family. You can be as mean as a hungry pregnant woman or as dumb as a UFC fighter, but if you can beat the majority of us in Nertz...Welcome, friend.

She is an incredible mother who has raised lovely, kind, funny, smart children.

While at BYU, I went to her house and was completely inspired. It was full of love, creativity and fun, run with efficiency and organization, was cleaner than clean and a lovely place to be. It was what I wanted for myself someday. She's just an all around Renaissance Woman. She does everything and is good at everything. In fact, if my Mom or I are trying to describe someone to each other who does everything and is good at everything, we say "...she's a Jennifer Wahlquist" and no further explanation is needed.

But here's the kicker. This amazing woman has been sick on and off for years with several different diagnosis of illnesses. To make a long story short, she received a stem cell transplant last year and has been in and out of the hospital ever since. Poked, prodded, starved, medicated, bed-ridden, quarantined, confined, weakened, and away from her sweet family. It has been an beyond awful nightmare. But because she is super woman, she smiles through it.


Her gorgeous baby Charlie (or perhaps her very funny husband Todd) keeps us all updated by their blog, where the main posts regarding her journey start here.
The post are never without a large amount of humor, entertaining us all with spoofs on pop culture icons, virtual pokes in other family members' ribs and dry, quick wit that always tie back to an update on Jennifer's ordeal, and we read, laugh and cry while we our hearts ache for her and her family.

A little while ago, Jennifer's oldest daughter
won first place in a photography contest with this image,
where the theme was "courage."

I cannot think of an image that would better illustrate that concept.

Get better soon, Jennifer.
We all want to beat you at Nertz.
We LOVE you.