What is there to say about someone as beautiful, as inspiring, as wonderful as my big sister Jessica Hannah Blanck?! So much, and so very little time. 21 years is really, truly not a whole lot to have with someone you look up to as much as Bekah and I looked up to Jess. The sad part is for me I feel as though she will never really know how much she blessed Bekah and I through these past 20 years that I’ve known her. Though I can’t truly say “I’ve known Jess her ENTIRE life” considering, she is about a year and half older than me, I did know her MY entire life, and my life is still going but her’s was cut so very very short. The pain has yet to sink in and as I sit here and write this it’s all too surreal to even think of what is yet to come. This journey I have to go on without my sister. Without my grudge.

Jessica…Jessica was…the Meredith to my Izzie. She was the FIRST person on the scene when Kyle Cooke passed away for me. I was lying in bed, in a fit of terrible tears, a tantrum of frustration towards God towards everything I had known for comfort. Kyle was one of my best friends, a grudge that I could lean on unlike anyother. I was losing touch with one of my BEST friends because I was struggeling to keep her close. I was pushing her away without even realizing it…and there tapping on my door, peaking her head in and pulling me to my feet was dear ole Jessie. The scene of Izzie lying on the bathroom floor and Meredith stepping inside, lying beside her, taking her hand and making her stand up and address the world again. That moment is a total capture of the moment that Jessie became the ‘Meredith to my Izzie’. Some of you have never watched Grey’s Anatomy, the ABC Tv show, but Jessica and I [and Bekah] all loved it. We watched it every week. Jessica was always the one holding my hand. And for me it’s almost like part of me will never be content with all that I’ve told her about you know the type of person she was to me.

There’s this song by Jonah 33 “Faith like that” that Jessica strived for. She would listen to that song on her hands and knees and pleading to God to bring her that faith. The crazy and ironic thing is, when we look back on what she’s written in her journals, and what she shows us in her drawings and the pure amazing faith that resounds off those handwritten pages shows a girl with incredible faith. With just that faith she strived for.

All I can say right now is that Jessica will always be remembered for her faith, her beauty and the way she treated other people. With this compassion, this knowledge…

Jessica, as you look down on me and Bekah and mom and Dad and all of your friends, just know you are truly missed. We love you with every ounce of our hearts and minds.

I keep thinking you’ll come “Home” but the truth is that you are Home. You’re with our Heavenly Father, and you’re with Kyle.

I love you “Jake”. I always will.