Jennifer Lanzaro was a beautiful spirit born with cystic fibrosis, she lived her life with enzymes and breathing treatments, with laughter and love, with Mets baseball and slurpees, and with her sister Marissa who did the same except wisely preferred Yankee baseball. Both Jennifer and Marissa bravely battled this horrendous disease, they stood by each other and supported the efforts of one another and believed in a bigger, brighter future for themselves and for the generations behind them.
When Marissa died in June of 2006, the world stopped spinning and for a while our hope for brighter future was dimmed. But just six months later, Jennifer would save us all, as a kind stranger saved her. Jennifer lay in the grips of death waiting on what could only be called a miracle. And I witnessed it. The miracle of organ donation. I walked at the head of her bed as she was wheeled to the OR and wondered what our lives would be like ten hours from now. I wondered and waited by the elevator, starving but not eating the NY take out in Mt Sinai's cardio-thoracic surgery waiting room. I thought back to six months prior and remembered making the photo collages for Marissa's funeral while Jennifer lay her head in my lap, I silently hoped that I would not be making collages again because who would lay their head in my lap? I sat terrified, and thought about how we would survive if she did not. It was such a challenge to put together the excitement for these new lungs with the uncertainty of the surgery and the critical nature of Jen's condition. But when morning came, our hearts exploded, and we were all saved along with Jennifer. One of her many surgeons came out to tell us all that the surgery went well, and I can remember holding my breath and reaching for the round leather stool in the waiting room as my knees buckled. It would be days before she could talk to us, months before she would come home and it would be four years almost to the day when her time would come and we would all gather inside her hospital room to hold her hand as she left this world. In that time we would celebrate holidays, lungaversarys, and birthdays. Jennifer would become an advocate for cystic fibrosis, she would lecture to medical students, nurses and faculty, she would raise thousands of dollars for cystic fibrosis research and she would leave, with everyone who met her, the hope she had always held bright and strong.
Jennifer Marie Lanzaro
November 12, 1977- November 13, 2010
May you rest in peace with all of our love.
