Cindy Lange-Kubick: Mother gives daughter life again

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Andrea Jantzen works behind the counter at the Mill, mixing fancy coffee drinks.

She wears skinny jeans and two bobby pins clipped to her short wavy hair, like a flapper transported in time.

On Labor Day, her bosses opened up shop and served coffee on the dock, with every penny going to Andrea and her family to help pay for a kidney transplant.

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Meredith Jantzen (from left), sister Andrea Jantzen, mother Kay Jantzen, and Meredith's son Noah, 1, sit outside The Mill in the Haymarket on Friday. Andrea will undergo her second kidney transplant later this month. Her mother is donating the kidney. (Erin Duerr)

Meredith Jantzen (from left), sister Andrea Jantzen, mother Kay Jantzen, and Meredith's son Noah, 1, sit outside The Mill in the Haymarket on Friday. Andrea will undergo her second kidney transplant later this month. Her mother is donating the kidney. (Erin Duerr)

Andrea is 28. She loves animals. Dogs, cats, even rats.

She just bought her first house. She doesn't own a TV. When she was a girl, she was the funny one in the family.

She whistled Billy Joel songs through her braces in the car on vacation. She put pantyhose over her face and walked around with her nose smooshed. She draped slices of turkey over her face at the dinner table with eye holes poked out.

She was the middle of three Jantzen girls.

Courtney was the oldest.

Courtney was her spiritual child, the girls' mom says.

"She was shy when she was little, then she grew into herself," says Kay Jantzen.

Courtney was the "matriarch" of the sisters.

She organized and planned, made sure the girls spent time together, even after they were grown and away from home.

Each of her younger siblings was closest to her — each a set of two with Courtney as the constant.

Meredith was the family’s baby. The inquisitive sister.

"She talked and questioned everything. Why? Why? Why?"

She loved school, loved to learn new things.

And then there was Andrea, her wild child.

The girl who got sick when she was 16 with a rare kidney disease that had no treatment. After that, she stopped being the family comedian.

"Her girlfriends were talking about their bad hair, and she had her bad kidneys to worry about."

It made her more serious, her mom says. More responsible.

Andrea still has a smile that lights up her face, makes her freckles almost glow.

But the disease took over for a long time, she says, sitting in Meredith's kitchen, three dogs dancing around her feet, her nephew, Noah, napping in the back bedroom.

Andrea got her first kidney six years ago, after six years of dialysis.

The plan was for Courtney to donate one of hers.

She was a perfect match and doctors were doing her final workups when a call came that a cadaver kidney was available.

Andrea took it. That's what you do. You take the sure thing.

It worked great, at first. But after a few years it became clear it wasn’t functioning like it should.

She knew someday she’d need another transplant. She already had a match waiting.

And then one day, almost three years ago now, Courtney came into the Mill.

I can't get half of my face to smile, she told her younger sister.

It was cancer — a brain tumor that couldn't be treated. Courtney was gone in less than two months.

Their family has had a lot of sadness, Andrea says. Her dad died of cancer the year she was diagnosed with kidney disease.

But they have a lot of joy, too.

They have their strong, free-spirited mom, who loaded them all up in the car each summer for camping trips to Colorado and South Dakota.

They have happy, busy little Noah — Meredith’s boy — who arrived shortly after Courtney left them.

They miss Courtney, but they talk about her, and they have accepted her death.

And Meredith and Andrea have each other.

“Andrea and I were so close to Courtney,” Meredith says. “Now Andrea and I are so close. That’s the door that was opened, I think.”

They all will travel to Minnesota in a week.

The mother will “be delighted” to give Andrea a kidney.

Meredith will worry.

They all will worry about one thing or another.

"My prayer is: ‘Make it all be OK. Whatever OK is,’" the mother says.

Because they are a happy family, they say, one by one by one.

And they have faith in a happy ending.

Reach Cindy Lange-Kubick at 473-7218 or clangekubick@journalstar.com.