Some little part of this 18-year-old girl was enchanted and enthralled by the raw glimpse of vulnerability and thought, “Ooooh… I think I can work with this!” There’s nothing that a teenage girl loves more than a tough outer shell with a soft, sweet center.
Ask any M&M you know!
A few years later, when we were married, there was a bit of a snafu on our wedding day and the cousin who was supposed to transport my Groom’s beloved aforementioned grandmother to our wedding dropped the ball somehow. After the event was over and we were driving away from the reception, he drove to the end of the pull-through, laid his head on the steering wheel and started to cry. I was, of course, alarmed as any new bride covered in hopes and rice and future dreams would be.
When I asked him what was wrong, he said, “I just never thought I wouldn’t be with my grandmother on my wedding day. Can we go to her?”
But of course, we could.
So, he in a white tux, me in a long dress and veil, looking like little bride and groom figurines snatched right off the top of a wedding cake, drove over 2 hours across a dark Louisiana swamp called The Atchafalaya Basin to a small Cajun nursing home where the residents lined the halls cackling and fussing in their native French language—so excited were they to see a bride and groom in full wedding regalia, certainly not your everyday sight in a nursing home.
We turned the corner into his grandmother’s room. She was sitting there in her wheelchair, clutching her rosary beads, head bent in prayer, when she looked up and burst into tears of shock and surprise at the site of her adored grandson as a groom. He knelt on the floor and laid his head in her lap while she made the sign of the cross over him and said again and again, “My Jimmy, my Jimmy, you make marry dat girl? You make marry dat girl?”
That scene is burned indelibly in both my heart and my mind. He knew that she sat in that wheelchair all day thinking that she had been forgotten.
And the “Peace that surpasses all understanding” enveloped me fully and I knew right then and there that I had chosen well.
So I stood there in that doorway and I thanked our God for the gift of this Great Man, who to the naked eye still looked so much like a boy. And I thanked Our Heavenly Father for whatever rare sliver of wisdom or insight on my part gave me such a bold confidence as to pursue him. After the blessing, we turned around and drove the 2 hours back to Baton Rouge, packed our car with our wedding gifts and left for Little Rock that night—because my husband was in the restaurant business and had to work the next day.
There are hundreds more stories like that. Anecdotes that exemplify the character of this man, his unique leadership style, hilarious stories about his unorthodox approach to developing people, both employees and his own offspring.
Early on in our marriage, I took a Bible study where I was introduced to the concept of tithing. Apparently, unbeknownst to us newlyweds, God had issued a mandate, expecting us to give away 10% of our income! All the young wives were encouraged to discuss this with their husbands that very evening. Well, I wasn’t worried one bit. I knew we were “off the hook,” as my husband was a very frugal man who would never agree to such an outlandish request, even if it did come straight from The Lord.
But I went ahead and told him about it that night and surprisingly and enthusiastically he said, “you know what—I’m in! Absolutely! Set up an entirely separate bank account and we’ll call it ‘The Tithe Account.’ Slice 10% off the top of everything I make from here on out and deposit it in there and we will give it all away!”
But it was the way he gave it away that was noteworthy. Of course, the Church received from us, but Jimmy very quietly behind the scenes paid his employee’s doctor bills, he paid his cooks’ children’s hospital bills, he paid their immigration fees to reunite them with their families. He gave people cars so they could get to work, made various orphans’ tuition payments and helped other people get back on their feet after a personal life disaster. But it was always very low-key. For him, Christian charity was quiet, low key and personal, which is why you never saw us at fancy charity galas. But I must allow for the fact that he also just didn’t like to wear a tux…
