Jinny, Wise Hero

Nicole Jeffords (2021)

This is a drawing of my son Julian’s fiancée, Jinny. I’m posting it although I keep seeing places that need a little bit of work — on the forehead, the hands, the neck. But I often feel my drawings are incomplete and intend to keep working on them even after I’ve made them public.

The thing to know about Jinny is that she’s a hero, one of the strongest women I’ve ever met. I was introduced to her a few months before the pandemic began, in October 2019, a sweet beautiful woman who even then was battling chronic metastatic breast cancer. She does not let the disease define her, doesn’t complain or even talk about it a whole lot. Instead she presents a warm, bubbly, magnanimous side of herself that makes one forget her illness. What a doll! I’m so glad I’ve gotten to know this multi-faceted person who enjoys cooking, baking, embroidery, drawing, and who loves her family — Julian and her daughter, Lexii — so much that her eyes shine with happiness whenever she talks about them. It makes me happy to be around her, so patient and philosophical and lovely in such a difficult time. She has a lot of wisdom to share.