Brother Jerry…dad
DATELINE: Birmingham, (in The Great State)-October 23, 2010 1:00pm EST
He is experiencing Multi-Organ Systems Failure. A term I’d never heard till yesterday morning but at the moment I heard it I knew what it meant. Dad is dying. He is experiencing strokes, heart attacks (yesterday he had a massive heart attack), his liver is shutting down and his kidneys have quit working, his veins are collapsing. Until yesterday morning when the docs just came out and said it I thought “he will get over this”. My good and honest friend, Doctor Kerr told me as I dictated the doc’s words from here. “Daley, your dad may die today, at most he has two to three days.” I love Doctor Kerr for more reasons than I could list here.
In a strange sort of way it has been a good time in my life. Every phone call I’ve had the last two weeks has begun the same - “how’s your dad?” I’ve had time to reflect. There have been hundreds of people who have come by, thousands of Facebook posts and emails and tens of thousands of prayers. Everyone thinks they own dad, that he is their’s, that he is their best friend. That ability to juggle so many deep and meaningful relationships is part of what has made dad, dad. It is part of what makes Jerry A. Jenkins the man.
I wish everyone who reads this blog knew my dad. My fear is that some will just think of him as a 74 year old man who had a stroke. Sorry, he’s different. I am unabashedly proud of my family. I know that could get out of hand and may have at times. I remember the first time that thought ever entered my mind. I had written about how Freed-Hardeman University was honoring our family, the first time they had done such, and someone in the church I preached at shot me an email that accused me of being sinfully proud of my family and thinking we were better than everyone else. I may own the first part of the accusation. But anyone who knows us knows we do not think we are better, only blessed. God has been so good to us. And I am just thankful to be a part of it.
But back to dad. There is only one Jerry A. Jenkins. He loves the souls of men more than anyone I have ever known. He is kind and compassionate to a fault. I remember my classmates asking me in 5th grade if dad smiled when he spanked me - that’s how kind people believe him to be. I want to say to his docs, “I wish you could see him in his suit with his hair done right. He is a striking figure.” I remember Ken Adams asking me in 8th grade is dad slept in his tie - and I remember sneaking into mom and dad’s room late one night to see - cause I thought he might.
I want them to know this tender giant who casts a shadow as big as his state. Dad has done a weekly TV program for 44 years. In 44 years he has NEVER repeated a show. In fact, he has through October completed and “in the can”. He moved to Birmingham in 1966 because he thought he could reach more people for Christ here. He was offered the jobs at both Woodlawn and Homewood. He took the Woodlawn job because they agreed to do TV and he said “I can preach to more people in 30 minutes on TV than I can in a while year in the pulpit.” That’s pretty much been his motive for everything he does. He couldn’t, not, teach.
I want them to know his name is not Jerry or Mr. Jenkins it is Brother Jerry or Brother Jenkins. I want them to know he has built three schools, that he got his doctorate and four masters degrees, that he is one of the lead scholars of Greek in the South, that he started a Christian camp, that he took the gospel to the only non-English speaking country in the world where it had not been taken in 1969, that he is a writer and a dreamer and a doer. That he does not belong in “that bed” but out doing from sunup to sundown.
So, yesterday as we learned more clearly that dad is going from this life to the reward he has leaned into for 74 years one of the residents here caught us on our way out of the room (She has been his on call doctor a good bit of the time). I want to recreate her words as much as possible. She’s from Pennsylvania and said: “I got word two weeks ago that my grandmom had had a massive stroke. I had to work and I wanted to be anywhere but here (in the stroke victims unit at UAB). I had not seen your dad yet but he was my first patient. I walked in and called his name. He turned his head towards me and took my hand and squeezed it and I knew everything would be alright.” That tenderness that is such a part of the fiber of Jerry Jenkins must have been in the motor neurons of his brain, an impulse, an automatic unconscious response. He loves everybody.
One of my nephews, Drake said a while ago: “I just wish PawPaw could sit up and talk for five minutes.” I said, “if he could, you already know what he would say. He would smile that big sweet Jenkins smile that he trademarked on the rest of us and say ‘Do right. Be humble, don’t be proud. Preach the truth. Love souls. Do something, don’t just sit around.’” That’s what he’d say cause that’s who he is! If you know him you know that if you don’t, I wish you could, but you won’t get it.
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*Thankfully two of my three siblings have ventured into “the land of blog”. Carey has as to yet start one but I can still hold out hope. Missie started her’s before Jeff. Her blog lives at: http://lissalomo.tumblr.com/archive. Missie writes from a heart that is larger than life - I dare you to try to read through three of them without a tear in your eye. She is probably the one who needs to put out a book in the family! And then there’s Jeff’s blog. Missie says Jeff and I compete - and we may - but it is not in any way an ugly competition. We love each other unabashedly. He is the golden child and with each thing he shares his “Midas touch” we all rejoice. His blog is deep and insightful and always teaches something. Frankly I was surprised he got into blogging but his blog is consistently the best on the web! You can read it at www.jeffajenkins.com under “Thoughts from the Mound”. They have both written powerful blogs lately about our dad.