What do you say to someone when thank you is not enough?
There is absolutely nothing I could do, say, or write that would adequately express the gratitude I feel toward my in-laws, Jim and Jane White. Honestly, I could write a book - and it wouldn't be a short one - about all of the things they have done for me, Jude, and our boys in the almost 25 years since I was lucky enough to wander into their lives when I began dating their daughter.
It's mind boggling to think that Jim and Jane were younger than I am, now, when I first met them in the late 1990's. How can that possibly be?
I believe Jim was still working as an investigator for the Internal Revenue Service. Jane was still working as a registered dietician with the family practice section of U.T. Hospital in Knoxville, where they lived. Jude's brother, James - 12 years her younger than her - was, I am guessing, a junior or senior at Farragut High School.
As for me, I was 30 or 31 years old and divorced. Jude was, I am guessing, 26 or 27 years old when we started dating. Damn, we were young. So very young. We dated for almost five years before we got married. Last year, we celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary.
My law partner and close friend, Mark Puryear, and I had only recently started our law firm, Puryear & Newman. We had no idea how to run a law firm. We didn't have a pot to pee in, as they say. A one year lease on part of an old house at 401 Church Street in downtown Franklin, TN, a line of credit, and a lot of big plans for the future. That was it for us professionally.
Jude had recently finished clerking for her mentor, Judge Barbara Haynes, and was working, I believe, as a first year associate at Stewart, Estes & Donnell, an insurance defense law firm downtown. My longtime friend and city softball teammate, Peter Klett, was a partner there and he and his girlfriend at the time, Jennifer Etheridge, set Jude and me up for our first date, but that's a story for another day.
I've often wondered what Jim and Jane thought when they learned Jude was dating a man - four years older than their daughter - who had been married before. My guess is that it wasn't necessarily how they saw things working out for their only daughter. If they felt that way, though, they never let it show in their interactions with me. I appreciated that then and I appreciate it more now, older and with boys of my own.
Quickly, I was introduced to the rest of the family - and it's a very large family, with 10 cousins on Jim's side and seven cousins on Jane's side, unless my count is off. I used to joke that I need a diagram of the White family to help me keep everyone straight. Jude is the oldest of all of the cousins. Between all of Jude's cousins and their parents (Jim's and Jane's siblings), a study aid of some sort was warranted, because there was just so many of them.
At the family events I attended early in our relationship, I shook a lot of hands, gave a lot of hugs, and nodded dumbly as I was introduced to yet another cousin, aunt, or uncle. I vividly recall having dinner at her grandparent's house at River Plantation in Bellevue and feeling overwhelmed at the sheer size of her extended family. Cousins, aunts and uncles everywhere. How was I ever going to get to know everyone?
Here's the thing, though, Jim and Jane welcomed me into the family without question, so everyone else did, as well. I think because they were so accepting of me from the very start, everyone else accepted me, too. That's the way I see it, anyway.
It seems like a lifetime ago - it was, in many ways - when Jude and I were dating and we'd drive to Knoxville on fall weekends to see the Vols play football and stay at Jude's parents' house in Farragut. In separate rooms, believe it or not.
We dated for quite a while - more than four years - until, one day, Jane said, "Jude, where is this going?" I think Jude probably silenced her mom instantly with her patented Sicilian stare. Soon, though, we were engaged, and it was off to the races.
Wedding planning. We were married at Cathedral of the Incarnation. Our reception was inside the Parthenon in Centennial Park, the only event I've ever attended there. It was a perfect February night in 2003 made more so by the fact that is started snowing during the reception. I've never been given an explanation for how Jane arranged for it to snow. That was next level wedding planning. It was a night to remember, for sure, and other than the days on which JP and Joe were born, I think it was the most memorable day of my life.
I could never have imagined having in-laws who were as kind, accepting, and generous, to me as Jim and Jane have been.
It's not a small thing - in fact, it's a huge thing - to have in-laws that are unwaveringly supportive of your family and everything you do. Jim and Jane have always supported Jude and me. Always. They show up for us and for our family. Always. To have in-laws that provide you with that kind of unconditional love and support is rare, I think, and something I try to never take for granted.
Jim and Jane moved to Bellevue after JP was born, which was a game changer for us (and for them, too, I suspect). The really cool thing was that having Jim and Jane here, local, allowed them to play a much larger role in JP's life - and later, Joe's life - than they ever could have played had they stayed in Knoxville. Our sons have been blessed in so many ways, small and large, by being around their grandparents regularly, at church, games, school events, etc.
I wonder if he remembers this, but Jim helped me at my very first baseball practice as a head coach - when the boys I was coaching were four and five years old - at Sevier Park on the makeshift all grass field there, of all places. While I didn't know what in the hell I was doing as a coach, I felt better and more confident having Jim there with me. I think we threw down some plastic bases in the grass, let the boys practiced base running, and maybe had the boys throw a little bit. That was the beginning of my nine year run as the coach the Dodgers - something I've written about in this space many times before - and Jim was there when it all started. He was there later, too, keeping a pitch count for me during JP's games, so I could make sure my pitchers didn't throw too many pitches.
In some ways, Jim was a father figure to me, and that's something for which I've always been grateful. He exhibited qualities I aspired to, as a man and as a father. Steady. Honorable. Diligent. Caring. Dedicated. Quiet - okay, I'm not quiet, but still, you get what I am saying.
Jim and Jane have traveled right along with us on the sports odyssey that has consumed our lives, much to our delight. They've driven all over middle Tennessee to watch JP and Joe play baseball, basketball, and soccer. They've watched the boys succeed and fail. They've watched their teams win and lose, sometimes in heartbreaking fashion. They saw me coach JP's Dodgers to the 11U state championship in Lawrenceburg.
They've seen JP blossom into an outstanding cross-country runner and they saw him cross the finish line in first place at every Junior School (7th and 8th grade) race last fall. And, to bookend things, they were at the River Campus last Thursday to watch Joe run and finish in 6th place in his first ever cross-country meet. They watched Joe play in a 3-on-3 Labor Tournament yesterday.
I'm not sure I've ever seen more dedicated and supportive grandparents than Jim and Jane. The boys realize how special it is that their grandparents watch so many of their games in so many different sports.
When the boys' nanny and our dear, longtime friend, Carley Meade, was diagnosed with colon cancer, had the first of multiple surgeries, and couldn't work for us for several months, Jim and Jane stepped in for Carley and took care of our boys while she was out. Honestly, with our jobs keeping us so busy, there is no way we could have run our household, cared for Joe at home, and gotten JP to school (I forget if it was Children's House or USN) without their help. On top of that, Jim and Jane helped us many, many times with transportation for the boys to practices and games.
This part is personal and it's hard for me to write about without completely falling apart. When my mom's mind and, later, her health, began to fail her, due to dementia and Alzheimer's disease, Jim and Jane supported her, and me, in ways I will never, ever forget. Before her health deteriorated to the point that she couldn't live on her own anymore, Jim and Jane often drove to Brentwood, picked my mom up, and took her to the boys' games, returning her home afterwards. That's a kindness I could live a million years and never forget.
Not too long after moving to Nashville, Jim and Jane joined St. Patrick Catholic Church, where Jude and I were members and had gone to church for several years. It's been a joy for all four of us to see them, at church, most Sundays and to have donuts with them in the church cafeteria afterwards.
One of the worst things about the pandemic was being relatively isolated and not being able to see Jim and Jane as often as we liked. It's crazy now and feel like it never happened but I remember eating lunch outside on the porch of our rented house in Sewanee on Thanksgiving at the height of first year of the pandemic. It a different Thanksgiving but having Jim and Jane there with us helped to maintain a semblance of normalcy.
Now, I find myself a 57 year old father of the two best boys ever to have been born on this earth. I am so grateful to have had Jim and Jane in my life - and in our JP's and Joe's lives - for, well, forever.
All I can say - and it's not enough - is thank you, Jim and Jane. For everything.
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