That spunk sustained Jessie until her death in March 1996. Since then, her mother has found her own creative way to cope—by writing and recording a 10-song album about her loss. Music-industry pals Bonnie Raitt and Bryan Adams contributed backup vocals on several tracks, and now Bullens has released the CD Somewhere Between Heaven and Earth. "Those first months after her death—there are no words to describe the despair," says Bullens, 49. "The music has given me new life."
Her old one began to unravel in 1995. That fall, Jessie began suffering from fatigue, fever, night sweats, vomiting and weight loss, but doctors said it was only "a lingering virus." Finally, in December, X rays showed the worst. "Her lungs were filled with tumors," says Bullens. "She was at stage four Hodgkin's disease—four is the worst."
Doctors thought her condition had improved, but by March she was back in the hospital with ever-stronger doses of chemo making her vomit and hallucinate. One morning, recalls Bullens, "she asked, 'Has the cancer gone to my brain?' She didn't want to live without the capacity to think. We said, 'No. You've just been a little confused.' She said, smirking, 'A little confused!' We laughed and thought, 'Thank God, she's better.' "
But she wasn't. Minutes later, Jessie had a seizure that caused major brain damage. Her doctors estimated that her IQ—which had been 130—would never get above 30. "I knew it was over. Jessie was never going to be Jessie again," says Bullens. Two days later doctors removed her from life support, with Bullens, her estranged husband, Dan Crewe, then a manager in the music industry, and their older daughter, Reid, now 17, at her bedside. "It's a horrifying experience to watch your child take her last breath," she says.
The trauma helped reunite Bullens and Crewe, who had separated two years earlier. Jessie's death was almost unendurable for both. "I couldn't conceive of going on," says Crewe, 64, who now manages Bullens's career. "If it hadn't been for my obligation to Reid, I wouldn't have even gotten up."
Bullens, too, felt physically sickened by the loss. "Then I picked up the guitar without thinking," she says. "The first song came with no thought." Over the next year, the musical tribute to Jessie poured out of her. While recording songs for the album last June, she asked Reid to perform a duet with her by singing the part of Jessie's voice from heaven. "I was reluctant to do it," says Reid. "I didn't want my mom to think of me as my sister. But I sang the part because I was the closest one to Jessie."
Music has always been very important to Bullens. The third of five children of Richard, a food salesman, and Mary Jane, a homemaker, she banged on bongos with her siblings until she bought a guitar at age 16. After graduating from high school, she left Topsfield, Mass., for Los Angeles to pursue a singing career.
Several months later Bullens crashed a party that she knew Elton John would be attending. She introduced herself, and within days John had hired her to sing backup on his tour. Bullens went on to sing two songs on the Grammy-nominated Grease soundtrack in 1978. The next year she wed Crewe, and she soon stopped working to raise their daughters. Nowadays, gearing up for a national tour, Bullens reflects in her Manhattan pied-à-terre, decorated with photos of Jessie and Reid in happier times. "This is a duet," she says of her new CD. "This is the place where Jessie and I meet."
Erik Meers
Helene Stapinski in New York City
- Contributors:
- Helene Stapinski.
Saved by the Bell Reunion
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