After Long Battle With Illness, Sophomore Passes Away Saturday
Jenny Faenza (COL ’11) kept herself busy around campus between her job at Midnight MUG, singing in church services on Sundays and ESCAPE retreats on weekends. She always shouted hellos and “hey y’alls” to the faces she knew and sometimes to those she didn't, all the while bouncing around campus with a white bag speckled with bright polka dots trailing behind her and a smile stretched across her face.
With her rapid speech and Tennessee twang, she offered personal advice and guidance to anyone who needed it — and was never one to shy away from chitchat either. She faced life with an authenticity and sincerity that friends, classmates and faculty praised, a result of her compassion for others and devotion to God. All those who are forever changed because they knew this sweet, small, Southern belle gathered Tuesday to remember their friend, who passed away Saturday night after a long battle with pulmonary hypertension.
Faenza was feeling ill on Saturday and was admitted to the Vanderbilt Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn., according to her mother, Amy Faenza. She died later that night.
During her time at Georgetown, Jenny touched the hearts of many through her involvement with ESCAPE, the Protestant Student Forum, Copley Hall Community Council, Georgetown Program Board and the Midnight MUG, never letting her illness slow her down.
“Jenny loved Georgetown, the people who are a part of the community here and the quality of the academic environment we share,” said Protestant Chaplain Bryant Oskvig, the leader of the weekly Sunday liturgical service that Faenza frequently attended.
“We who knew her have been richly blessed by the joy, humor and excitement Jenny shared with her friends," he said. "Georgetown will seem a little less joyful without her around, but in caring for each other and this community that Jenny cared for so deeply, her spirit remains with us.”
Matt Renart (COL ’11), a co-worker of Faenza’s at Midnight MUG, met her for the first time when he was hospitalized due to his asthma.
“I actually met Jenny when we both had to make trips to the ER. I just remember how sick she was feeling, but she walked over to me to introduce herself and she seemed more worried about how I was doing than anything else,” he said. “I know everyone at Midnight loved working with Jenny; she always put you in a good mood because she was always in high spirits. To say Midnight's going to miss her is an understatement.”
“Jenny … [was] unceasingly optimistic. When you think about her continual struggle with her illness, it's really incredible how brave she was in choosing to go away to school and live her life the way she wanted to,” said Charlotte Myer (COL ’09), director of personnel at Midnight Mug. “She was extremely dedicated to everything she was involved in, and you could tell she deeply enjoyed working with people. … Jenny was one of those people that made everyone a little bit happier just by knowing her.”
Faenza served as a general member of the Georgetown Program Board during the fall of her freshman year and became the off-campus chair the beginning of January 2008. She was recently elected to serve as special events chair beginning next year, according to GPB Chair Jackie Mendez (MSB ’09).
“When Jenny became the off-campus chair, we had ice-breakers for the executive board at our first meeting,” Mendez said. “One question asked was, ‘What’s your biggest fear?’ Her answer was ‘not making a difference in the world.’ Once she gave that answer, I was like, ‘Wow, this girl is amazing!’”
Some of Faenza’s dearest friendships on campus reached far beyond the organizations she participated in and the services she attended.
Enrique Lemus (COL ’11) first met Faenza at GAAP weekend. During freshman year, they met again through a mutual friend and Faenza immediately approached him to reminisce about their previous meeting. Since then, they have been the closest of friends.
“Jenny was simply one of my best friends,” Lemus said. “One of my fondest memories of Jenny was her greeting me at the airport when I arrived in Washington D.C. for the beginning of my sophomore year, just because she said people love to be greeted at airports and have someone waiting. She was just that type of person. She loved to make people happy and be there for others. People speak of how positive she always was. She was a very strong person, both for herself and for others. … I just really miss her and pray that she keeps watching us and reminding us that a positive attitude can help us find the strength to face life's difficulties.”
When Josh Mogil (SFS ’11) met Jenny last year in Spanish class, they clicked right away.
“When Jenny met a person, she made an investment in them that truly was incredible. I always thought of her as ‘my person,’ the one who could solve all my problems and just listen when I needed a friend,” he said. “But I wasn't the only one; she touched everyone she met in such a profound way. … We need her more than she knew, yet I know her positive convictions will continue to guide me, and those that knew her, for the rest of our lives.”
“Jenny was one of my best friends, and I have so many memories of her,” said Matthew Mullarkey (COL ’11), who met Faenza in her freshman dorm, Village C East, last year. “The last time I saw Jenny, she was in the hospital, and I asked her if she was running the place yet. She smiled and said, ‘Of course I am.’ She was so strong and always wanted the best for everyone. I've never seen anyone with as many friends either. I feel honored to have been so close with her. She will be missed, and Georgetown definitely won't be the same without her.”
Emily Sharp-Kellar, Faenza’s long-time best friend from home and a sophomore at the University of Alabama, said Faenza was diagnosed with pulmonary hypertension, or high blood pressure in the arteries leading to the lungs, on graduation night of her senior year in May 2007.
“She was salutatorian of our class,” Sharp-Kellar said. “They had to film her speech at the hospital to play at the ceremony.”
Later that summer, she said, doctors at Johns Hopkins University linked Faenza’s pulmonary hypertension to scelroderma, a chronic disease that leads to the hardening of the skin and connective tissue which occurred in the arteries of Faenza’s lungs.
According to her mother, Faenza was so ill in the summer of 2007 that her doctors told her it would not be possible for her to attend college outside of her home state of Tennessee. Her plan to attend Georgetown in the fall was shelved.
“The first thing Jenny said when her doctors told her she couldn’t go to school out of state was that could she go to Middle Tennessee State University. … She had been given a full scholarship there,” her mother said. “She was then in the hospital for seven to eight more weeks after that. We didn’t avoid the subject of Georgetown. … We were just doing all we could do at that time to stay together and help Jenny get better, because she was very sick.”
Amy Faenza said that after a few weeks on a new medication at the Johns Hopkins University Hospital, where Jenny had been transferred in July 2007 for a lung transplant, her condition improved significantly. Faenza was taken off the transplant list and doctors told her she would be able to attend an out-of state school in the upcoming fall after all.
"Jenny had her computer with her and logged into her Georgetown account. Once she did, she told me, ‘When I logged on, I had been receiving every e-mail regarding orientation. It was almost as if I was never not going.’ Three weeks later, we took her to Georgetown,” Amy Faenza said. “Her time at Georgetown … was divine intervention. She just ate it up with a spoon. She loved being in D.C. and at Georgetown. It’s where she belonged.”
Faenza’s involvements with Protestant groups on campus stemmed from her deep religious commitment and desire to become a minister in the future.
“Jenny was one of the first students I met when I arrived on campus this summer,” said Fr. Kevin O'Brien, S.J., executive director of campus ministry. “Her welcome made me feel right at home on campus. Her enthusiasm and zeal for life were contagious. Jenny intended to pursue further studies in theology, in order to become an ordained minister. She was a young woman deeply committed to her faith and to putting her faith into action to make a real difference in peoples' lives.”
Last year, Faenza wrote an essay for the Higher Education and Learning Ministries of the Christian Church describing her battle with her illness and how it strengthened her belief in God.
“I truly believe that God gave me this enormous obstacle to overcome because God knew that I could take the situation and use it to inspire people, which is what God knew they needed,” Faenza wrote. “I was (and am) an instrument of his love, peace and hope, as is every child of God … Knowing that I am and we are forever being sustained by the Giver of Life keeps me faithful and hopeful.”
“Jenny Faenza was the most wonderful person I have ever known, and I am so proud and so thankful to call her my best friend,” Sharp-Kellar said. “Although many people change when they move away and go to college, Jenny was always just Jenny. The Jenny you all knew at Georgetown was the same girl that I've known for years. She was a spitfire. She was intelligence, wit, kindness, generosity, beauty and friendliness all wrapped up into her tiny five-foot frame. … I was with her through her entire battle with her health, and I never once heard her complain. She was eternally grateful for all of her blessings: her wonderful family, her friends and her chance to experience everything at Georgetown.”
“It's hard to describe a best friend because any words seem so limiting, but Jenny was about anything but limits,” said Parisa Tabassian (SFS ’11), a friend of Jenny’s. “There was no end to her dreams and goals. And there will be no end to our friendships with her. She wanted to be here at Georgetown more than anyone else I know. I'm so honored to have known her while she was living and loving life to its fullest here at school. Loving you always and forever Jenny.”
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