My daughter Genevieve will turn five in April, but she turned ageless years ago.
Jim, which is what I call her (or Captain Jim, or Jimmie), is a poetess.
Her native inner rhythm is comedic timing, and she seems almost incapable of being unamusing.
Much of what she says and does is not only funny, but deeply thought-provoking.
I sometimes wish I could catch her paradoxical, bewildering, and unfailingly pleasing style, her effortlessly sparkling conversationality, her unmannered manners, and pin them to a board like so many butterflies.
But five minutes’ time in her company will demonstrate that even the fullest collection of her flutterings wouldn’t capture her. Nonetheless, if I ever desired to live long, it would only be to outlive Jim — and so to be in the position to do her some fraction of justice by serving as her Boswell.
This morning I woke up with infected sinuses and upper lungs after several days of slow recovery from a stomach flu. The four eldest of my five children were awake while my ailing, pregnant wife remained in bed with the youngest.
While three kids clamored for breakfast, Jim put her hand on my arm and asked me with intense warmth to join her on “a date.”
I served the others yogurt, poured myself a black coffee, and made Jim her usual — instant decaf with milk and sweetener. She led me to the loveseat in the far corner of our living room.
“Do you want me to die?” she asked.
“No!”
“Well, I will die. At the end of life.”
I blinked.
“And if you don’t look at me, I’ll disappeaw,” she added, taking a sip.
I am prone to moroseness. Depression has a way of dulling and slackening our resolve, allowing life’s darknesses and duties to accumulate through neglect and smother life’s brightnesses.
Perhaps as a matter of hereditary course, Jim is also prone to moroseness. But her moroseness has an edge and a glint to it. She sharpens herself on the dulling grindstone, and the universal fear of Hell does not dismay but animates her — up and onward.
She’s a true comforter to a sad soul like myself. And not because she answers my sadness with cheer, but because she answers it with a better quality of sadness. In her company, deep calleth unto deep, and all the waves and billows are gone over me.
I’m convinced she’s precociously, astoundingly aware of the deep disturbances that lurk beneath the surfaces of daily life — the same disturbances that threaten with plodding regularity to paralyze and render me inert. But she reaches for them like an experienced husbandman for the pest that worries his livestock.
In short, Jim is handy. Like a cowboy. This whooping wrangler of spirits. This rough mechanic of souls.
God blesses you both by means of each other. Thank you for allowing us to share in a very special acquaintance.