20 August 2025
Jensina Hardy, photographed in the San Francisco County Jail on 6 November 2015. Photo: Robert Gumpert
On the 6th of November 2015, I meet, photographed and recorded Jensina Hardy in the San Francisco County Jail as part of my “Take a Picture, Tell a Story” project.
A year and bit later I received an email from Mary Jane Scarlett, 16, the oldest of Jensina’s two daughters. Mary Jane was looking for information on her mom, and a way to connect. Unfortunately, while still working in the jail I had not seen Jensina since 2015, and had no idea of where she was.
Then, in one of those strange quirks, two weeks after Mary Jane’s email arrived I ran into Jensina on the street. Jensina seemed overwhelmed with the possibly of connecting with her daughter.
Two weeks later I saw Jensina, and learned the contact had not gone well.
That was the last time I saw Jensina, or heard from Mary Jane until the 8th of July 2025, when I received the following email:
This email, and many since, has led to Mary Jane Scarlett writing the following piece.
Three Little Birds
Mary Jane Scarlett
A mom and a daughter in the car together, windows down
As Mom was driving down the road, she was painting her nails with me in the front passenger seat. I was far too young to be up there, but there I was, as we sang “Three Little Birds” by Bob Marley together. I will forever be convinced that is the soundtrack for our memories. It was the first CD I owned, and the first record I ever purchased.
Top: Jensina holding Mary Jane in the hospital in 2000 Bottom: Jensina bringing Lorilei home from the hospital in 2003
Top: Mark and Jensina cutting cake at Lorilei's baby shower Bottom: Jensina and Mark at the military ball in 2002
Years later, a white stuffed bear, an Exodus CD, and a letter show up in a package on the front doorstep. My mom is in jail at this point, and I don’t remember the exact contents of the letter, but I do remember it was filled with apologies.
Flash forward twenty years, and this bear is the only item I have from my mom. I have lugged it to every house I have ever lived in, and the bear looks grey and lifeless.
“Bearly”, Mary Jane’s bear, the only item she has from my mom
In the beginning when she called from jail, usually the call ended with me in tears. Before I would hand the phone to my younger sister, Lorilei, Mom would tell me to go into the bathroom and wash my face with cold water because if I wasn’t crying, she didn’t need to either. This little ritual was preparing me for the rest of my life; anytime I become overwhelmed with emotion, I go in the bathroom and splash cold water on my face, and take a deep breath.
For these memories, I thank her.
Being 25, and getting a phone call from an estranged uncle letting you know that your mom, who you have not seen in 15 years, has died… yeah, I went through a load of feelings immediately.
Truthfully though, I really just remember feeling like I was eight years old again, and that I missed my mom more than anything in the world. When I was a child, I grieved the loss of my mother, but now the light of hope that she would one day come back and be the mom I wished for had finally been blown out.
So I buckled up, splashed some cold water onto my face and got to work. I knew that I would be the one to handle this when it happened. Unsure of what exactly that entailed, I was not sure where to start, but I just started. I called my family to let them know she passed. The reactions were mixed, but everyone told me that they supported whatever decision I decided to make, no matter what that was. I then called the San Francisco Medical Examiner’s office. They asked me a handful of questions about her, all of which I had no answers to. I recall brutally saying “you have more info than I do, bud”. On the other side of the line, I only had two questions:
“What are my options?”
They informed me that direct cremation was probably my best bet since I am on the East Coast. Finally, I asked the hard question:
“What happens if I decide to do nothing?”
The man on the phone immediately started to ask if there was anyone else who would want to do something. I said no. So, he told me that she would be cremated by the state. They would spread her remains, and her death certificate would have no next of kin listed.
Although it may seem slightly grim, I decided that I wanted her death to have something good come out of it, and thought I would be able to donate her body to research. But after calling high and low to every one of the whole-body donation organizations on the West Coast, and after not having any luck due to my lack of medical information about her, I landed on direct cremation. I decided that she could come and live in my front closet until I decided what we wanted to do with her, to give me some time to figure out how to process this grief that is like navigating uncharted waters.
San Francisco’s Tenderloin. Photo: Robert Gumpert
When I called the Medical Examiner, they gave me a last known address. She was residing in SRO (single-room occupancy) housing when she died. So I learned she had a room filled with things. I knew there might not be anything for me to keep, but I was curious about where and how she was living. I reached out to my contact in San Francisco, Robert Gumpert, and he offered to go and take pictures of her apartment for me so I could authorize the building manager to clean it out for the next person in need.
Nothing was worth shipping across the country, but what I took from the photos is that she wanted to escape her reality.
Jensina’s room in a SRO hotel in the Tenderloin where she had lived for about the last year, and where she died. Photos: Robert Gumpert
The room had Young Adult novels scattered around, as if she had been reading them recently; some of the books I read in school to escape my own reality. There was also a “Managing Money for Dummies” book on the window sill, which I take with great irony because the woman couldn’t find the value in a dollar. She lost that when she went on her counterfeiting journey in the early 2000s, and she knew and recognized that. Also on the sill were some hair curlers; my mom was known to keep her appearance as best she could, even while homeless.
Since she has passed, I have come to collect some new memories of her. I reached out to friends who knew her before she fell into indigence. They were all extremely happy to hear from me, but sad to hear the news about her. A lot of them had not heard from her in several years, and they had not realized that she had passed until I reached out.
I think my favorite memory I had been told was that when she would walk to her job at the thrift store - to my knowledge the only legitimate job she ever held - she would plug headphones into her walkman and sing Madonna (or whatever top hit at the time) at the top of her lungs for the entire walk to work. I was also told she would hide the “cool” clothes for her friends to come find.
It is nice to now have “normal” memories of her.
They all told me that she always saw the good in people no matter what, and she never judged anyone for what they were going through.
I think what stuck with me the most is that they said she had an infectious personality, that you just wanted to be her friend. They told me that she loved Lorilei and I more than anything in the world. It was said that when she would call sporadically throughout the years, she would always ask, usually within the first sentence, “How are Mary Jane and Lorilei?”. Every one of them reminded her how great we were doing, and told her that we just really wanted our mom to be with us.
Everyone said that she had her faults and her demons, and she should have done better by us. And I agree.
For the memories everyone has come to share with me, I thank them.
Homelessness and addiction ran in Jensina’s family. In 2015, when she was asked about homelessness while she was in jail, she said, “When I was little, my mother was homeless in Miami, and I remember having to look for her in just the worst places. And I felt a real sense of abandonment, because I was a kid, and I didn’t have that structure.”
In my research, I learned that on several occasions, she would take friends to see her mom under the Cow Key Channel Bridge in Key West. Her mom was happy where she was, and no matter how many times Jensina offered to help her off the street, she refused. I can now only imagine that she distanced herself over the years because she did not want to inflict the same pain of disappointment on us, her children. She said, “There is some circumstance that has put that person out there, and for whatever reason, they can’t overcome it. For me, it’s my addiction to drugs in general, and because of that reason, it keeps me on the street.”
Mary Jane at 4 years old with sister Lorilei at 1 year.
As her oldest daughter, I still hold a lot of resentment towards her. I am not ashamed to admit that. However, being her child has made me who I am today. I am the one that holds the memories of our mother, because my sister was too young to remember her. When she left, we were around eight and five. I have so much drive and ambition. I am kind and caring to those I love, often in a motherly way. I always want to be a good example for my sister, because our mother was not. Unfortunately, my mom will never know who we are now. She will never get to see the accomplished and responsible adults that my father worked hard to raise since she left.
My mother was held above me as a warning all my life. I always knew that I was not supposed to be like her. When I was in the 5th grade, I took D.A.R.E., which was a requirement in my school system at the time. I was assigned marijuana as the drug I was to do a report on. I will never forget when I found out that Mary Jane was a slang term for Marijuana. I was ten at the time. This was the beginning of me really learning what the effects of addiction can have on people. When I was found with cannabis in my room as a teenager, I was shown a picture of my mom under a bridge and was told “this will be you if you choose drugs”.
Now as an adult, I have found that marijuana can be used as a harm reduction tool, and it is not the gateway drug they were advertising it as in back in 2010.
I quickly came to learn that there are not a lot of resources available for people like me in this situation. People don’t really know what to say to you when you say “my estranged, indigent mother died”. People do not want to give you information over the phone. They don’t believe you are who you are, worried you are a scammer, when really I am just the person who answered the call and proceeded to do something about it. Most people have expected me not to do anything, and not try to handle any of the normal responsibilities you have after someone passes. It’s uncomfortable, and unfortunate that is the standard reaction.
I found that my mother was born in Minnesota, grew up in Central Florida, and then in 2012 she landed in San Francisco’s Tenderloin. She once said, “I have a community of people out there of people that know me and that look after me. I have a network of, I would like to call them friends, but whether or not they are is still kind of up in the air. I have people out there that genuinely care about me.”
My mom truly believed that the homeless were just lost talent, people who have the potential to be great, but their circumstances were the reason they were not successful with demonstrating that greatness.
Jensina had the potential to be a great mom, but unfortunately her circumstances, mental illness, and chronic substance abuse prevented that from coming to fruition.
On July 5th, 2025, at 12:59 p.m., Jensina “Jenny” Hardy was pronounced dead at 47 years old in her apartment in San Francisco. She passed due to overdose and was found after a friend called for a wellness check on her.
She leaves behind two daughters, Mary Jane and Lorilei, her two little birds - “Singing, “Don’t worry, about a thing, cause every little thing is gonna be alright””- Three Little Birds— Bob Marley & The Wailers
An Update
Left: Jensina, “Bearly” and a joint. Right: Mary Jane Scarlett in 2025
She showed up in the box, and we had a chat. I laughed and told the box that this is probably the most time we spent in the same vicinity of each other in over 10 years.
I lit a joint and I sat with her.
…
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