Remembering Jocelyn Maureen Denham

Rachel Crossen - crossre@plu.edu

Jocelyn's Roommate, Senior

If you have seen the picture of Jocelyn and Brady in the media, the one where she is in a pink shirt and a black vest, in one of these pictures Brady is making a heart with his hands and Jocelyn is making a heart as well, maybe look a little closer but she is flipping off the camera. Now try doing this silly hand gesture, it’s hard. Jocelyn did this in 3 seconds. It took Jocelyn 3 seconds to really make you laugh.

Maybe it was a funny face, or a really smart, clever remark, or her incredible talent for quoting our favorite movies, but she had us constantly giggling or rolling off of our chairs in laughter.

Both first-year and sophomore years in the residence halls, Jocelyn led the way in getting groups of friends together for lunch in the UC or to “study” in our room, which really meant watching either “Sex in the City” or the “Band of Brothers” series.

Both first-year and sophomore years I lived with Jocelyn in the residence halls. The residence halls are a very unforgiving place: dirty dishes, large gatherings of friends, loud music, missing clothes, both of us sleeping in through our alarms,trash and recycling piling up outside of our room, and at a certain point, breaking all the safety codes and rules (we had our couch outside of our residence halldoor in Pflueger.)

Although this was pretty chaotic, Jocelyn was able to take care of paying for school and all of her finances by working extremely hard. I have this image of Jocelyn in Pflueger with her feet up on the windowsill, and leaning back in her chair, listening to me get really heated about some crazy issue that was on my mind. Who knows what the conversation was about, but Jocelyn listened to me ramble on. She made sense about any question I had; it could have been about which actor was in that one movie, or who in history really did that. Maybe it was because she was so great at using Google, but it was mostly attributed to her intellectual and personal brilliance.

That year in Pflueger, Jocelyn did some major growing. She loved all of us and shared a lot of her amazing, beautiful spirit with many people. Even when Jocelyn was busy with being involved with school, work and all of her many groups of friends,she still made me feel loved unconditionally. Waking up and going to sleep each day knowing she would listen to anything I had to say, and that she would support and love me no matter what, really inspired me to become that kind of a friend to everyone else in my life. So, from this point on in sophomore year, a group of us solidified our college friendships into something I could have only dreamed of.

Jocelyn not only taught us about being a friend, she knew how to work hard. It would be sometime between 11:00 p.m. and midnight, after a day of class and studying. Jocelyn would then get off of work from NPCC and would track down the 4 or 5 of us still out and about in hopes of continuing our nights into some kind of ridiculous escapades.

The summers between our years in college together we kept in touch by writing silly and sweet cards to each other’s homes. Jocelyn would remind me about how to be a “gangster” or would write out on the back of a post card one of the million pointless inside jokes.

Our third year at PLU, Jocelyn lived in a house with us on Wheeler Street. Jocelyn continued to work very hard to balance her life and become a complete and healthy woman. Dealing with whatever sad and difficult circumstances life dealt her, she always continued to love with all of her heart and work hard using all of her strength and determination. Jocelyn lived with enthusiasm and hunger for adventure (and cheese, French red wine, salads and corndogs) she would invest her emotions and time into so many people and ideas.

Jocelyn worked hard to pay for her way to Paris, France for a semester studying abroad. Jocelyn had never been to Europe, and I never really thought she would do it. Jocelyn had a dream to be in Paris for a semester and study. I’m still not sure how much studying she actually did there, but she successfully went, paid for it, and continued to make life long friends from a round the world. Sharing a good laugh, good food, a funny movie, an inappropriate comment or gesture, a common interest in history, reading or music, Jocelyn’s repertoire of how to touch someone’s life was endless.

Jocelyn worked at the Boys and Girls Club and a couple favorite memories of her were walking to the pool with a large group of kids. It would be a hot summer day, and Jocelyn and I probably stayed out too late with all of the girls the night before. With her precise and thorough organizational skills she was able to write out lists of kids’ names, organize the permission slips, round up 30-sack lunches, then get to the pool start the real fun. Jocelyn would try her best to blow up the kids’ floaties, break up fights over Popsicles or a quarter, and would encourage the little kids to go down the big water slide, all while forgetting to put any sun screen on herself. Coming back home sunburned bright red, Jocelyn always insisted that she didn’t actually fall asleep laying out in the sun.

Jocelyn called me from Paris just to tell me that she woke up that morning missing the kids she worked with, and that she wanted to become a teacher. I was so excited! She had wanted to be a lawyer up until then, but I knew that teaching and working with children of all ages was her true calling. Senior year crept up on us, and we couldn’t even fathom that we were into our fourth year of school together. This year was different for all of us who were close to Jocelyn. She had grown into a very strong person who was dedicated to healing herself and achieving big dreams. This had been a year of memories, road tripping, concerts, barbequing, healing and, more than anything, celebrating our awesome life with Jocelyn as a friend.

Brady had come into Jocelyn’s life in the summer of 2007. I remember being on Whidbey Island with them (and sDan and Abi) in attempts to camp out on a beach. Jocelyn and I had just met Brady, Aaron and Brittney at work, and we all decided to go on this spontaneous weekend trip together. It was absolutely unreal how Jocelyn and Brady connected on every level. After those 24 hours of setting up camp at a few different beaches, then finally in Dan’s backyard, we all knew that Jocelyn and Brady were going be something very special. They were both smart, funny, and sarcastic, loving and open towards all people in both of their lives.

Jocelyn thought she could cook, and Brady thought he was “Bear Grylls”— neither true, but to Brady, Jocelyn was a domestic diva, witty and beautiful and Brady was Jocelyn’s cowboy, her beautiful scientist. In Rieke, waiting for him to get out of class, Jocelyn would tease him by yelling out as he was walking down the stairs, “Paging Dr. Brady!” After class Jocelyn, Brady and I would hurry home so she could try and cook something without burning it. The last “bickering incident” (we won’t call it a fight) Jocelyn and Brady had, Jocelyn told him to be a man and apologize in front of all of us. Brady texted Jocelyn and told her to come sit by him so they could make up, yet she wouldn’t give in. In hopes of getting her to smile, he decided to take over cooking the spaghetti that night, and for once the smoke alarms weren’t going off.

We love you Jocelyn. You have taught us how to love each other and ourselves and that we need to put time, effort and hard work into this life, and that real strength and determination is part of the human spirit that enables us to do anything and everything that we have ever dreamed of.

Jocelyn spent last spring studying in Paris. She posed here in front of the Eiffel Tower.