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NEREIDA DE JESUS: Life With Lauren

 

For Nereida DeJesus, life equaled Lauren. Lauren was her daughter, a bubbly 7-year-old whom Ms. DeJesus, 30, was raising alone in Woodlawn in the Bronx. Mother and daughter would do everything together -- get their hair done, go to movies, take bubble baths.

Ms. DeJesus' new job as a claims adjuster at Aon Insurance, which she started only a few months before Sept. 11, enabled her to send Lauren to a private Catholic school.

When Ms. DeJesus was not working or taking care of Lauren, she could usually be found at church, either at her sister's missionary church in Dover, N.J., or at a church near her home.

Ms. DeJesus, said her sister, Elaine DeJesus, wanted to be like her own mother, who had raised three children alone on the Lower East Side -- when that neighborhood was one of the worst in the city Ð and somehow had them all turn out fine. "Her job was helping her accomplish the plans that she had," Elaine DeJesus said. "She was proud."

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From "Profiles in Grief" of The New York Times