When I was in 7th grade, my carpool driver was a senior named Jennifer. Every morning she picked up me and my sister, as well as my friend Matt and his older sister Lauren and drove us to school. She was definitely a unique person. She had a bumper sticker that read "Born Again Wicca", kept rats for pets, and listened to nothing but Tori Amos' "Little Earthquakes" and the Indigo Girls' first album. But she was also one of the kindest people I knew. When my sister puked in the car one day on the way to school, Jennifer didn't get angry, just cleaned her up and brought her back home.

She was also one of the first adults I knew to not treat me like a kid, despite being 5 years older than I was. One day her car broke down on the way back from school. Lauren and I were the only ones in the car. Since I wouldn't be much help pushing the car, I had to sit in the front seat and steer. She moved the driver's seat up as far as it would go, and sat me down in it. As I sat with my knee locked against the brake pedal and my hands gripping the steering wheel, she looked at me and asked, "Are you scared?" I'm not even sure if I answered, because nobody had ever really bothered to ask me something like that.

The next year, during an argument with her boyfriend, Jennifer shot herself. I didn't go to her funeral (something I now regret,) but when a teacher announced her death at our 8th grade class meeting, I stepped out into the hallway and cried. I only knew her for that single year, but every time I hear "Crucify Myself" or "Closer To Fine" it brings me right back to 1992, sitting in the back seat of her Ford Tempo.

I miss her.

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