In the fall of 1994, my husband met a tall and loud curly head Portuguese student in law school who went by the name.....Jay..he was in my husband's section and therefore Brian saw him on a daily basis in the lecture halls and lunchroom... even though Brian tried desperately to avoid him. Jay was a character, loud somewhat obnoxious and joked non-stop with the ladies....which meant that my newly married husband who was soon to be a dad didn't want this single guy as a friend. Besides he didn't think that Jay was bright and wondered how he had made it into law school! But on a cold day in November, the day after I gave birth to my first child Justin, my husband needed a favor from this character Jay. ..you see Jay was one of the few students who had a car and my husband suddenly found himself without a ride to the hospital to see me....our Honda wouldn't start, the battery and alternator needed replacing and we were starving students ourselves and new parents...the dealership would have to wait...and Brian asked Jay for a lift. This ride changed the entire course of both Jay's life and our new little family even though we didn't know it at the time. He gladly drove Brian and was happy to help a fellow law student in need even if Brian never paid much attention to him until that day. We learned that Jay was the type of person who would give his shirt off his back to someone else if they asked and hence gave Brian a ride. He told us he came from a modest immigrant family and struggled to get to law school. He was working a factory job in Hamilton driving a forklift. His parents were happy with his existence and insisted that he was set secure in a career with good money to provide his own future. Jay had a large family but was the oldest boy with a photographic memory and the ability to do well in school without even trying. He aced the entrance tests to law school and had to convince his dad that going to university would be better than dogging it out everyday in the factory. His dad was pessimistic and Jay found that he would have to make it on his own in law school.We soon relied on Jay for more rides. He became a study buddy for Brian and won the heart of my baby.I adored Jay for when he came to our house all he wanted to do was play on the floor with Justin. Brian's first impression of him as loud was true......but he was just a big kid who loved life and was happy to share that with all that knew him. Over the next 2 years of law school, our family saw Jay regularly and he became part of our law school years so much so that when I moved back to Toronto to resume my insurance broker career, Brian and Jay became room-mates. The relationship continued . We saw graduation together, the knock-down but get up again article year from hell, birthday parties, a wedding and divorce for Jay, partnership at the firm, and then another wedding and a baby shower.
Fast forward 15 years to yesterday... when I held Jay's beautiful newborn baby girl Chloe in my arms and remembered Jay's kindness that night and thankful that fate brought him to us ....and in return I found him a wife ( a true story) ..... and now he too has a baby to hold and love as we did 15 short years ago!
Love you Jay forever!
P.S A notable mention goes out to Lucy's sister Veronica....without her, I would not have been apart of this beautiful ending.
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