Down so long, young woman looks up now through tears

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Robert L. Jamieson Jr.

Monday, February 24, 2003

Down so long, young woman looks up now through tears

By ROBERT L. JAMIESON Jr.
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER COLUMNIST

These people don't care about me. . .They just want me to say something nice. . Words that will make them feel good. . .

These negative thoughts consumed her as she stared into the crowd, a microphone in her right hand. This was supposed to be her shining moment. All eyes were on her.

No one could hear the tiny, whirring gears of doubt churning inside the young woman standing before them in the floral-colored sundress.

Then, suddenly, a breakthrough.

"Thank you," she said, the words from her heart jabbing away slowly at haunting insecurities. "Without you . . . I couldn't have made it . . . I feel very grateful . . ."

Tears tumbled down her cheeks.

The people who saw Jinsi Jundt cry in downtown Seattle the other night would have been right to conclude she was happy about graduating from the FareStart job-training program. FareStart provides homeless people with an opportunity to learn cooking and hospitality skills that will transform them into hires for the local food-service industry.

But few of the folks in attendance could have known the story behind the teardrops: The release was an emotional exclamation mark for a woman overcoming drug abuse, alcoholism and other evils arising from bottomed-out self-esteem.

For once, Jinsi had stuck to the menu for success in life. "I'm crying these days for all of the right reasons," she told me later, tugging nervously at the hem of her dress.

Hers is one of the quiet, larger-than-life success stories, made possible by caring people and good programs, in our too-often cynical city. I'm crossing fingers that one day soon you'll see Jinsi's wondrous smile at a Seattle restaurant.

If you do, know this -- that smile has been a long time in coming. Jinsi is "just so determined. She made it happen. She fought through, like a tiger," says Bobby Mitchell, lead case manager for FareStart.

Jinsi was born 31 years ago in Korea. Her father, a long-faded ghost of the past, was African American; her mother is Korean. Jinsi lived overseas for several years before she was adopted at age 11 by a family in Yakima.

Her relationship with the adoptive family became strained, and that stress was compounded by her struggle with her ethnic identity. On Jinsi's 18th birthday, she says, her family showed her the door. "I've been on my own ever since," she sighed.

Her sighs sound a mournful cadence, and her words add sorrowful lyrics to a life gone wrong. Putting Yakima in the rear view, Jinsi headed to Seattle, where she worked in fast-food joints and retail before the bottle worked on her.

Alcoholism led to a rough crowd and that crowd unleashed a misery in the sump of Jinsi's soul. "Depression and confusion," she said. "I was using drugs. Binging. I wasn't a hard-core addict, but you know what? I did enough."

Seven years ago, Jinsi gave birth to a son, Glen, who lives with his father in the Seattle area. Jinsi loves the boy more than life itself, but her bad living had compromised that love. One person was to blame. "I made," Jinsi said, "very bad choices."

Good, however, can come from bad. After stumbling and bumbling, after bouncing between the street and transitional housing, Jinsi decided to right her life's ship. She needed help. Some spiritual ballast. A safe harbor.

She found that and more at Sojourner Place, a transitional housing facility in North Seattle which offers private rooms for eight women.

Polly Irish, a Sojourner executive, saw inside Jinsi a trove of potential. Polly knew that Jinsi wanted to have her son in her life and dreamed of moving into low-income housing. Polly also knew that FareStart could help Jinsi shore up job skills that would help with those goals. So she steered Jinsi to the program.

A welcoming hand was waiting in Bobby Mitchell, the FareStart case manager who lives by a motto -- "If you can commit to the commitment you can attain."

Polly and Bobby, along with their staffs, worked to help Jinsi, who was finally working to save herself. During the 16-week FareStart program, Jinsi joined other students in taking cooking classes with professional chefs and learning key life skills.

She also saw a counselor who helped her with her emotional issues and supported her in the fight against drugs. Sober for seven months, Jinsi feels like a new woman, a mom on the make, a future cook.

At Thursday night's graduation, she joined other new graduates in a Second Avenue dining room filled with friends, family, volunteers and corporate supporters of FareStart. But for Jinsi nagging doubts began to swirl: Did these people in the crowd really care? Would they disappoint her? Would she disappoint them?

"I looked at all of those folks. I started to feel hardened again. I looked at them and looked," Jinsi recalled for me. "Then I melted. They weren't out to get me. I could see it in their eyes. They, um, they. . ."

Yes, Jinsi, they love you. With the mention of the l-word, her tears began to fall again. Cleansing tears. Jinsi's shiny jewel drops of hope.

P-I columnist Robert L. Jamieson Jr. can be reached at 206-448-8125 or robertjamieson@seattlepi.com

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