There are places I’ll remember
All my life though some have changed.
— The Beatles
Recently, my best friends since junior high, Mary Beth Fesmire, Leah Case Jorgeson, and I said good-bye.
Leah is moving to — as she repeatedly emphasizes — RURAL Oregon. Leah said her husband Jeff was so excited that except for her clothes, Jeff had meticulously bubble-wrapped and boxed every item they own.
This move to The Great Outdoors has been somewhat of a deja vu experience. Only three years ago, Jeff convinced Leah, a summer-loving lifelong Mississippi girl, to sell their Clinton home of 30 years and move to the Northwest, where he grew up, where all his large family still lived.
Leah’s parents, Russell and Sybil Case, were deceased, and the Jorgeson sons had settled in Colorado and Washington, D.C. So they put their house on the market. It sold in a week. They had one month to vacate.
Jeff grew up in northern California, his fun consisting of hiking forest trails and mountains with his brothers, white water canoeing and conquering the most challenging rivers. If a river ran through it, he was on it or near it. As an adult, he returned often.
Jeff, excited as all get out, packed and got out. He U-Hauled their belongings, a dog and his still-in-shock wife to live with a brother in Idaho until they could find a house.
But God placed roadblocks at every turn, the first being that the brothers’ dogs hated each other, prompting a hasty move to an apartment. Eager to buy, they made multiple bids, all falling through.
Then Leah got “the call” from her only sibling Shellee: “Leah, I’ve been diagnosed with kidney cancer.”
The turn-around was easy, as all their stuff had never left storage. Purchasing a home in Madison close to Shellee, Leah became shopper, advocate, encourager and later, hospice caregiver for Shellee, who had transitioned to Stage 4. Above all, as for us, Leah became Shellee’s go-to source of much needed wit and laughter.
I met Leah at Denman Junior High. We clicked. Who but God knows the whys. Friday night was fried fish, spend the night — and there were many. Like me, Leah had her own room, hers plastered with Bobby Sherman posters. She slept with the screened windows open and a fan, her humongous yellow tabby Jo Jo often intruding.
One night, Leah Jo snapped, “Janellyn, I’m hot. Get your feet off me.” Always a side-of-the-bed sleeper and keenly aware of a nearby cat with claws, I was awake. Her voice rose in irritation: “Janellyn, get your feet OFF me.”
Slowly, I raised both feet as high as I could and forced her to focus on my levitating legs. Turns out that 20-pound feline was on her feet. We have a hundred stories like that.
I also chauffeured Leah for two years. I loved to drive and she refused to learn. I taxied us to the McComb City Pool, Percy Quin, Sonic and to the roads “where the boys are.”
Even though college and jobs and marriage to the greatest guy ever pulled her away from Pike County, our high school friend group kept the “Jive of ‘75” gang alive by initiating what came to be an annual girls’ weekend.
We dubbed it “summah fun,” so coined by an in-demand Baton Rouge hairdresser. Client Mary Beth, who lives in Brandon, plopped herself in the chair: “I’m going to visit my high school friends and need a new do. Do what you want.”
He shuffled her blonde tresses: “Ohhh. How about a little summah fun?”
So for over 20 years, the gang held “summah fun” spend-the-night parties. Leah’s home was the popular choice, as chef extraordinaire Jeff cooked for us.
Later, we switched to an annual Christmas dinner and gift exchange at the Jackson Olive Garden — back corner booth. Leah moved back to Mississippi in August 2019 and relayed her sad news at the Christmas gathering. Three months later, COVID hit, and the gang group-texted every day until we felt safe to visit — which was only recently.
Shellee lost her cancer battle a few months ago, and so again, with no family here, Leah encouraged Jeff to revisit that dream of living back where “the wild things are.”
In my den for a farewell, we shared the now, the memories, and laughed and laughed some more. Then I said, “Girls, we are going to dance. Name your song.”
Alexa, our new Amazon friend, joined the party as we boogied to KC and the Sunshine Band and rocked out to the Doobie Brothers and Credence Clearwater Revival. We Soul-Trained around my den like Golden Girls gone 2020.
The wistful poet in me ended our visit with my favorite Beatles song, “ In My Life.” I cried.
On the drive back to Madison, Leah told Mary Beth, “I almost broke down, but I feel a huge melt-down coming, and I want Jeff to be there when it happens.”
That’s Leah Jo Case — still witty, even in the hardest of good-byes.
JANELLYN B. CORNACCHIONE, a lifetime resident of Pike County, recently concluded a 40-year teaching career in three high schools.
