Besting Jim

It was hard to outdo Jim at much of anything. When we were first married he taught me how to play backgammon. He'd win nearly every time, until I'd start crying. Then I'd miraculously win and he'd deny throwing the game. Then I'd get mad because he let me win.

Over the years, we had a number of talks about not telling other guys what to do. Other guys don't want to know what's wrong with their grill. If they said it's broken, then leave it. If there's a better way to hang drywall, perhaps they can figure it out on their own. I know that at one point my mom said something like "Wait on that project until Jim gets here" and my dad got furious and said he could do it without Jim. (This was probably pre-JimnI, during which he would proclaim for everything "JimnI are going to {insert location}".) Jim couldn't understand when we had to have these talks. Jim just figured if there was a faster, easier way to do something, you might as well do it that way. He just wasn't familiar with handling the male ego. But sometimes guys would get annoyed.

And by the way, Jim was great on the grill. No one made a steak like Jim.

Jim was also a sneaky trickster. One of my brothers had a not-so-subtle way of teasing Jim. But Jim wouldn't tease back the same way. Jim's was pure wit. He knew how to tell a good story. He didn't babble endlessly at a party (like someone else we know) - he interjected short, sweet, really funny things. Jim was the one who would come out with one-liners.

Jim was smart beyond belief. If he didn't know it, give him 20 minutes and he'd figure it out. I can remember getting frustrated on the few occasions where he admitted he didn't know something. What do you mean you don't know? You're Jim, for heaven's sake. Of course you know.

Sometimes I would feel so jealous. He was just so smart and so good at everything. His hobbies created or resulted in something substantial. Woodworking - he made practically everything around our house. There are little symbols of love all over the place, including bookshelves, a fireplace mantle, a windowseat and shelves in Rachel's room, an awesome mudroom setup...you name it, he could make it. He was a great runner, and even at my best I couldn't do better than his worst. He was good at drawing, although he was pretty shy about that. And he was great at puzzles, mind benders, stuff like that. Sometimes the jealousy got so bad I'd start to wonder if I was ever good at anything. Sometimes I wouldn't let him watch me work on something because I just couldn't bear to give him proof that he was better than me. (As if he needed it!)

When we redid our kitchen in Atlanta, I put my talents to work and saved a lot of money. We paid off a big credit card and paid for the kitchen in cash. But Jim was the one that actually did the kitchen (with help from our neighbors, Paul and Sara), and people raved about it. I childishly tried to point out that I'd been in charge of saving the money and picking the stuff for the kitchen, but no matter what I said or did, I didn't do the work. And the work was the really amazing part of the kitchen. Especially if you'd seen it before we finished it. My stuff was all behind the scenes. Jim's was all so tangible.

When we moved into our second house in Atlanta, Jim went out of town when I was about 8 months pregnant. Well, we had a house full of boxes that weren't even close to unpacked, and there was some sort of mix-up with the water company, and somehow the water to our house got shut off while he was gone. I called the water company and tried to explain that there'd been some sort of mixup, but alas, it was after 5:00 and they wouldn't help me. By the time I called Jim I was crying so hard he couldn't understand what I was saying. (But he knew it was me - he was familiar with the crying thing...) He finally talked me through the entire process of stealing water - "Go down to the basement. At the third box, take a right. In the first box on the left is my water wrench. Take it out of the box. Now get a big screwdriver from the box next to that. Go outside. On the left side of our lawn close to the street is the water access. Pry the cover off the water access with the screwdriver. Put the water wrench on the screw and turn it to the left. Now put the cover back on and go inside." All the while, I'm sobbing and wailing that I'm going to be arrested for stealing water. Jim laughed and said "Kate, we live two miles from the 'hood where they've got drive-by shootings and crack houses. Do you really think they're going to care about an 8 month-pregnant woman stealing water for a few hours?" I stopped crying. "Well, no." "Then go take a shower and calm down. I'll be home tomorrow." And that was that. There are so many points to that story - one being that he happened to know which box the water wrench was in. A second being that he knew where the water access was in the yard for our new house. The third being that he got a hysterical hormonal pregnant woman to stop crying. The fourth being that he had a water wrench.

When Jim and I first met, it was sort of a love-after-first-date kind of thing. Shortly after our first date, my parents asked Jim to watch their house while our family went on a backpacking trip in Colorado. We called the house at one point and asked how Jim was doing. He said to my dad "Fine. I was a little bored...I hope you don't mind but I cleaned out your pool filter, fixed the pump, and fixed all the fallen rails on your split rail fence." When we hung up the phone dad looked at me and said "I like this one." And that was that. He's been fixing things at our house ever since.

Did you know that Jim used to cut his own hair? Looked pretty good, didn't it? He'd cut his hair in the basement, using an ancient pair of clippers and a mirror. The first time he did it he came upstairs and there was a big red ring on his forehead. I said "What happened to your forehead?" He said "Oh, I just cut my hair." I said "Okay, but why is there a big red ring on your forehead?" His twinkly eyes shone as he said "I used to shop-vac to get the hair off me and it must have gotten stuck to my head." I just laughed. He looked good - if wanted to use the shop-vac on his head, I was okay with it.

When I look back over the years, I remember feeling so much pride in Jim's talents. I loved showing people around our houses and when they'd point something out I'd get to say "Oh, Jim made that for me!" But I remember feeling envious, too. He really was an amazing man, and it was easy to feel envy for his many talents. I always wished I was more like Jim. In fact, after Jim passed away I considered getting one of those WWJD bracelets. But instead of thinking "What would Jesus do?" I would think "What would Jim do?". I wish he was here with me right now.