Jessica Jacobsen

 This is Jessica Jacobsen. Jessica is an eighteen year old girl born and raised in small town, Nebraska. All her life she’s been accident prone, breaking both of her arms, and injuring countless other things even before her teen years. No problem had ever stopped Jessica, no problem except for one: her heart defect.

The first thing that strikes you about Jessica is her smile. It is a happy smile that is always on her face, and seems to grow larger, and larger when she becomes particularly enthused about a topic. Although she smiles often, you can sense troubles from her past, but only if you watch very closely because of her continuously positive attitude.

This is a story about the hardships in life--the hardships that all people face. It is story but the joy in the end if one just continues to smile through them all.

Who is Jessica Jacobsen? Well, in all honesty she is a just a teenage girl, from Broken Bow, Nebraska. But she is so much more than that also. Jessica, overflowing with confidence and charisma, joined the speech team in her sophomore year of high school. As if she is not already involved in enough activities, she is also in band, journalism, and choir. When asked to describe herself, Jessica said that she was average, or “in the middle.” Truly she is underestimating herself as she has become a counselor to her friends, always serving as a springboard of sorts against the difficulties of adolescence. This will be good training for her in later life because she has expressed a desire to go into psychology, or perhaps write an advice column.

It is a Friday morning, Jessica is awake and scared. Her whole family is, of course, scared. They knew this moment would be coming, they had known since Jessica was a baby.

Jessica Jacobsen was just one of the thousands of babies born with a heart defect each year. Her's was just a slight murmur, though, and doctors had told the family that it was supposed to present no troubles throughout her life.

The doctors were wrong.

It is almost time for Jessica’s operation. She is only eighteen, but in a matter of moments will be going under the knife for open heart surgery. She is with her parents. She and can tell they are nervous, and must be brave for them. The nurses come to take her. They wheel her away, where she is then hooked up to an IV for the operation. The last thing she remembers before going under is laughing, laughing and smiling.

Jessica is awoken to the feeling of cold in her mouth. It is her grandfather trying to feed her ice chips. She is weak and can only stay awake for a few moments before once again falling into a deep sleep.

Of course, what makes Jessica interesting is her resilient spirit. She is so much more than her defect. If one had not known previously about Jessica’s surgery they never would have been able to guess. She gives no hints, rather she hints that she has had a happy, healthy, trouble free life; which for the most part she has.

Jessica is a good person who, unfortunately, suffered a bad break. But that’s the way that life works. There has never been a moment in history where bad things didn’t happen to good people, or hardships were not faced. We as a civilization have to be able to force ourselves back up, just as Jessica did, and continue to speak, and laugh, and smile.