Student remembered for efforts to raise funds, spirits
Jessica Clark was never one to complain.
On her 10th birthday, Clark lost her mother to chronic transplant rejection. Clark carried on.
Then, almost three years later in 2003, Clark was diagnosed with primary pulmonary hypertension, beginning a 10-year battle that inspired her to raise money and encourage organ donations.
Clark died Thursday. She was 22.
She is survived by Neal Clark, her father; John Clark, her brother; her paternal grandparents, David and Margaret Clark; and aunt and uncle, Julie and Mike Couch.
After her diagnosis, she didn’t give up hope.
Clark went back to school and picked up lacrosse and soccer after undergoing a double lung transplant. For a while, she seemed to be doing better.
But when she arrived at USC as a freshman, she was diagnosed with the same disease her mom had, and her condition began to worsen.
The day after her 21st birthday, she received a second double lung transplant. Clark suffered an unexplained stroke shortly thereafter.
Clark maintained her upbeat demeanor.
“She went into the hospital, and she was feeling horrible. She couldn’t even walk,” said Rica Buettner, a close friend of Clark’s. “But when nurses would ask how she was feeling, she would say, ‘I’m great, how are you?’”
She was constantly surrounded by her family while she was in the hospital. In her final months, more and more friends came to her bedside.
Eventually, Clark decided to stop taking medication. After Clark’s father, Neal, watched his first wife succumb to the same condition, he wanted to make sure his daughter decided everything herself.
“She had seen it all happen to her mom, so she knew what was happening,” Buettner said.
Because of the second transplant and the stroke, Clark had to drop out of USC during her junior year.
But before she died, she starting taking two management classes online, so she could continue working toward her degree while she recovered from her stroke.
Over her last two months, she finished and passed both classes.
As a board member of the Lung Transplant Foundation, Clark collected donations for Lungapalooza, an event that benefits the foundation’s research efforts. Instead of flowers at her funeral, Clark’s family requested donations to the foundation.
Those efforts were recognized on campus, too.
USC President Harris Pastides said he was moved by her efforts to raise money and spirits despite her illness.
“Her story is a heroic one and one that inspires me to worry less about my daily, minor problems and to do more to help others,” Pastides wrote in an email.
Buettner said Clark was “strong, loving and caring” in both sickness and health.
Likewise, the Bible verses read at Clark’s funeral Monday were more fitting of a marriage than a memorial.
“She wanted us to hear the definition of love,” Buettner said.
Clark had planned parts of her funeral before she died, including the songs she wanted to be played. At the service, her aunt and uncle performed Mercy Me’s “I Can Only Imagine.”
Her family and friends who attended the service in Wallace, N.C., her hometown, were reminded that while many smiles are forced in situations like these, Clark’s was always genuine.
Clark worked to make sure that the people around her understood the importance of organ donations, because they saved her life twice.
An organ donor herself, Clark encouraged others to donate, “because that’s the future of the illness that she had,” Buettner said.
“She put everyone in front of herself. She prepared us for it,” Buettner said. “She was literally a fighter.”