Jennifer Rachael Makofsky

Jenny and I were friends in high school. I always thoroughly enjoyed her sense of humor and keeping it real for things that mattered. Above all, she was kind and I have many happy memories of her. She is still missed.

I worked with Jenny at Seven Hills School, Walnut Creek. Not long after her death, I wrote this poem... I'm not sure if I shared it then but just found it today... A Storyteller Steps Out of Time For Jenny Storyteller shape shifter of the tongue moving our minds into other worlds adding dimension, new colors, new sounds spirit traveler teach us Magician pulling rinoceronte out of top hats pulling rugs out from under the pompous out of your sleeve comes candies and comets conjurer confound...

I dreamed she hadn't died at all and was merely living in a remote corner of the sky, between the dimensions, reachable via a complex tangle of ropes and pulleys. When I got there, I saw water below, and Jenny reassured me we were safe because there was a handle to pull that dismantled the rope. I did not pull it. Jenny suggested we play a game naming BIPOC actresses from TV and that would help us sleep. I was about to say Phylicia Rashad, knowing I would lose against the master game-player...

Last January, the Sacred Storytelling series highlighted my sister and her performance piece "Everything You've Ever Wanted to Know About Everything." The organizers asked me to share some reminiscences. I thought I'd share them here. Jenny Makofsky, my sister. She would want me to say her full name here, before anything else. So, she had these qualities that, for a long time, I was under the illusion were singular. For example, at the age of 5, she checked out massive hardcover...

Energy can neither be created nor destroyed.....it just changes form.

I miss Jenny's energy......I know she still exists, but in a space and place unrecognizable to us still on earth.

Sometimes I hear her laugh. What a joyous and unbridled laugh! I wish to emulate Jenny's self confidence and her sense of peace and freedom. I miss Jenny. She is lost to us for now, for this time of our being, but her energy is working with the other energies in the universe and...

May 27, 2011 Jenny would have been 42 years old. That's the number of "Life, the Universe and Everything" according to "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". I find that extremely appropriate. Happy Birthday Jenny, wherever you are. I miss you. Love, The Cuz. xoxoxo

I was stunned to hear of Jenny's death. I was her classmate and friend during her years at Rincon Valley Jr. High and Santa Rosa High School. We were colleagues in our passion for the written word and friends who understood that there was "life after all this." I am truly sorry for your loss (and Serena, who I knew as well). At our 20th reunion, I ensured that a photo of Jenny was shown during the memorial presentation. I also returned to SRHS as the writer/director/producer of a...

Puedo escribir los versos mas tristes esta noche.
Pensar que no la tengo. Sentir que la he perdido.