Lakeside High School (Plummer-Worley): Jazirah Gentry finds a way to not just survive, but thrive

Jazirah “Ziri” Gentry had a rough start in life. Born two months early, purple and gray, she had to be resuscitated, as her lungs weren’t functioning. She then developed severe asthma as a child.

Her father left when she was 3. There was a stepfather for a while and abuse in the home. She and her brother Brelyan were raised by their mother, Lorraina Gentry. Ziri Gentry describes her mother as a walking ray of sunshine who babied and took care of her, despite having lupus and severe arthritis and the family facing both food and housing insecurity.

Gentry’s path to a high school diploma continued to be more and more difficult, as she was diagnosed with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis in fourth grade and then a hypermobility pain disorder. There was a gap in her schooling, when she did schoolwork online from grades 4-8, often not able to get out of bed due to hand and foot swelling and pain. She was not interested in doing any more.

When Gentry was socially and cognitively ready to return to school, her mother encouraged her and got her extra help so she could get up to speed. When she was 15, her mother’s own conditions became acute, and her daughter took care of her until she contracted COVID-19 and died.

That was in Gentry’s freshman year at Lakeside. She and her brother lived alone for a few months. After some temporary moves, their uncle Jason Smith took them in. Her school counselor helped her get into therapy after she had a bad panic attack at school.

“I had no motivation and was pretty depressed. My mother was everything,” she said. “But I realized it was all on me now. If it was going to happen for me, it was up to me. Since freshman year, I’ve gotten all A’s.”

She has earned her child development associate credential and does child care daily at Plummer’s Early Childhood Learning Center, and also works where needed as a teacher’s assistant. Her mother had worked there previously.

Her mother was an enrolled member of the Coeur d’Alene Tribe, and Gentry has embraced family traditions, including performing traditional ceremonies, as her mother had before her, and helping extended family members honor loved ones by spreading their ashes into the ocean.

Never involved in group sports, she does enjoy swimming and running Bloomsday. She takes Native dance classes, though her joints still get stiff and she has knee and hip pain. Her favorite subject is English, which she believes also comes from her mother’s influence, and has begun writing stories. She notes that her mother wrote for tribal newspapers.

“I do take after her a lot,” Gentry said. “I’m also going to Eastern Washington University this fall, where she went, and will be studying for a degree in family counseling.”

Gentry said she is proud that she and her brother, who works in Plummer and is also a cage fighter, have survived and even thrived.

“I want to be financially stable,” she said, “and I still have goals to meet.”