Boys Cling To Father’s Love
It’s easy to write off Jerry White. He was a bar brawler, a ne’er-do-well long before a gunshot blinded him 17 years ago.
Jerry was only 37 when he was killed last month in a car wreck. The wife and two little boys he left behind in St. Maries overlooked his shortcomings. They loved him and they’re heartbroken.
His wife Mary crumbled last week when she overheard a man in a cafe say Jerry deserved what he got.
“He didn’t deserve to die like this,” Mary says, her tears falling faster than her tissue can absorb. “He had such a hard life.”
Jerry wasn’t one for sympathy, so he probably wouldn’t care that the town hardly veered from business as usual during his funeral. But he would care that his reputation is hurting his sons.
“Their daddy loved them more than anything else in the world,” Mary says, clutching a photograph of Waylon, 7, and Jerry Jr., 8. “If they told him to go to the moon and bring back a star, Jerry would try.”
Jerry did things for his boys no one would have suspected. He took them fishing. He couldn’t see them, so he tied a rope around their waists and his arm in case they fell in the water.
The one time Mary said it was too late for the boys to go fishing, Jerry brought his catch home live. The boys watched the fish swim in their bathtub.
Jerry let his boys take him to school for show-and-tell, and he let their classmates guide him around the classroom.
But every winter, Jerry left unannounced for sunny places. He liked to walk, and snow locked him indoors. Mary understood, but the boys hated his long absences.
They know Jerry isn’t coming back this time. He was a passenger in a car that hit a tree. The driver survived, but even the seat belt didn’t save Jerry.
His boys are grieving in their own young way. Waylon holds onto Mary, needing to know she won’t leave him. Jerry Jr. is quiet.
Mary winces at the things her boys have heard since the crash. That Jerry deserved it. That Jerry was the driver and survived.
“No one can hurt Jerry anymore,” she says. “But it’s very hard on the kids.”
She’s making the boys scrapbooks about their dad and won’t sugarcoat his life. They need to know the truth, she says.
And that includes how much he loved them.
Snowflake time
Just when winter grows its most tedious, Coeur d’Alene’s Snowflake Festival will come to the rescue. Don’t worry if you haven’t heard of it - it hasn’t happened yet. It’s coming in February, complete with singers, dancers, jugglers, magicians, actors, musicians, artists and crafters.
Now is the time to book your act or exhibit space. Visual artists, call 664-9553; performing artists, call 765-2580.
A year to remember
Your best year ever. Maybe it was 1945, when World War II ended and you traded your soldier’s fatigues for a bridegroom’s tux. Maybe it was 1969, when you and 10 tie-dyed friends rolled to Woodstock in a psychedelic bus. Or maybe it was 1981, when the toughest struggle you ever endured produced the sweetest baby you’d ever imagined.
The year that still quickens your heart is too special to keep to yourself, so write about it in up to 300 words.
The top three or four stories will run the last week of the year (coincidentally, the week I’m on vacation).
End 1995 the write way, win a wearable gift (gee, what could that be?) and ensure my vacation. Slip back in time for Cynthia Taggart, “Close to Home,” 608 Northwest Blvd., Suite 200, Coeur d’Alene, ID, 83814; fax to 765-7149; or call 765-7128.
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