Elizabeth Swaringen wrote this …
I will always associate Jean Rogers with cheerfulness. That’s the first word I thought of when I met her mid-way through her radiation treatments. I don’t know if it was her rosy cheeks, those eyes that sparkle with a hint of mischievousness or the matter-of-factness with which she spoke, but it’s clear she’s a woman who seeks the silver lining in everything – and finds it.
Jean Rogers
Jean’s description of her stay at SECU Family House as “a vacation if it hadn’t been for the treatment” was quickly put in context when she talked about the only other time in her adult life when she’s been away from family for weeks on end: nine weeks in a hotel while attending training for her job. I’m convinced if Family House had not been available to her, she would have made the two-and-a-half hour drive one-way daily to Chapel Hill for radiation rather than stay in a hotel.
Her tears of gratitude for her family caught me off guard. It was near the end of the interview, when I looked up from my notes to continue the conversation. I hadn’t heard a sound, but her cheeks and eyes had gotten redder, and the waterworks were well beyond a trickle. Through the tears she spoke with a sweetness graced with gratitude about the kindnesses of her family through her medical journey. I’m confident her family would speak the same away about her daily presence in their lives in both sunshine and in rain.
Jean never expected the college work-study job she took with the Social Security Administration her first year at UNC-Pembroke in 1970 to become a career. She still got her teacher certification as planned, and she’s specialized in teaching life lessons by example ever since. I was pleased to be an accidental student.
