A mother’s body has primal forces. It moves mountains. It stretches, tears, heals, grows, warms, nourishes and houses. But for Jenny Lijten – Meulendijks, her children’s house was sick. While pregnant with her youngest son Finn, she battled cancer as a race against time. Until the primal power ran out. Way too early.
“We want to put Jenny in the spotlight. Create awareness and show people that life is not always as beautiful as they think,” say husband Jan (29) and girlfriend Xavanna (27). They stood next to Jenny, who became terribly ill in the prime of her young life. Now the two of them are sitting at the kitchen table and looking out at the photos of her pregnancy, which are right next to the prayer card on the bookcase. “We want to show that she is not forgotten.”
Jenny, Jan and Xavanna met each other at a mutual friend’s party in Helmond. They were Trousers in their early 20s and 19. “Jenny was very sweet, she really put herself aside for others,” Jan says about his love. “I don’t think there are many women like her. She could really listen and was sincere. She was never sneaky.”
“I don’t know a better couple than Jan and Jenny,” Xavanna agrees with Jan’s feeling. They complemented each other. “Jenny did have a bit of a backpack, but Jan made her feel like she was good just the way she was.” Jan nods. Judging by his attitude, he takes this for granted. “We never had an argument,” he says. “That makes it extra sad. Because I think we would have grown old together.”
“Actually, she was just declared healthy.”
Jenny got sick when she was 25. She had just become the mother of her first child: daughter Liv. It turned out that there was a tumor in her ovary, which had not spread further. The tumor was removed and that seemed to be the end of the matter for most. “We tried to tell her that she could be happy, actually she was declared healthy,” says Jan. “But she always had the fear that it would come back. There was a gut feeling that it was not good.”
In such cases, intuition is a beautiful thing, but also a devil’s advocate. An unrest that you would rather not have felt. Something that you can direct, that warns or reassures you, but cannot be explained further. Jenny’s feeling turned out to be correct. She was pregnant again, when spots on her skin confirmed what she had feared for so long. She had ovarian cancer again, but this time with metastases. So she had to start chemo, with a baby in her belly.
Son Finn was delivered via caesarean section at 34 weeks. At that moment, there was love and evil in Jenny’s stomach at the same time. Cancer and a baby. “Jenny really stretched that out as long as possible, for the health of her child, despite the fact that she was in so much pain,” says Xavanna. Then Jenny was left in the hospital. She had finished her treatment. Injury time.
Jan and Jenny got married, even though he actually had no interest in it. “I thought: what else can I do? What else can I offer her? Then I asked her to marry me at home. In pajamas.”
“I proposed to her at home. In pajamas.”
Their wedding day was a bright day in March, with everyone who should have been there. Jenny in a beautiful dress, a photo shoot with the children and a dinner with family. Literally and figuratively for the books.
In addition, Jenny tried to leave her loved ones as carefree as possible. She wrote notes for Liv and Finn and put them in a box, so that their mother can be present at all the big events. “And we bought two cuddly toys in which she could speak her voice,” says Xavanna. “I am also a mother myself. So when we knew that Jenny was dying and had to leave the children behind, we switched a switch.”
Now that storm has subsided. Jenny is no longer there. The diapers need to be changed, the dishes need to be done. The groceries in the refrigerator and the food on the table. “I do feel sad, but I have the best feeling about getting on with life,” says Jan.
“I try to get the best out of it for the children and stick to what Jenny said to me. At the time I found that very difficult to hear, because then you know that death is coming. But now I am her very grateful for that.”
“It’s not normal to experience something like that when you’re 28.”
‘Constructive hard’, Jan calls himself, in summary. He is a go-getter who prefers to deal with his grief in his own way. “I can manage it well, but I underestimated it,” he admits. “It took me a few months to realize what I had experienced. It’s not normal to experience something like that when you’re 28.”