The Generosity Gene

Sharing his new doctor's kit with Teresa and Jeremy

Jory was born with a “generosity gene.”  He was the kid at pre-school who shared the toys, waited his turn, and comforted the other kid who was crying.  His teacher, Dotty Abel, commented that she had rarely seen a child who would give up a toy because another child was whimpering while waiting to have it.  

We always thought that Jory had learned from the beginning to share toys because he was not only little brother to Darren, but also to Lars, the giant Weimaraner, who came into our family a year before Jory was born.  

Lars and Darren before Jory was born

Lars knew his birthright and tolerated Jory, at 2, when he sat on him.

Lars, at 110 pounds, was not allowed onto the furniture, but he had domain of the family room and kitchen.  He knew his birthright was after Darren and before Jory.  With Lars attentively at my feet, I bounced Jory on my lap while sitting on the sofa.  We sang songs and played along with nursery rhymes.  Lars wanted to be part of the action, so when the time was right, he gently snuck one giant paw onto my lap beside Jory.  If I didn't brush it away, he waited patiently for the opportunity to add his second front paw.  Jory giggled and wiggled over to make room as we continued playing.  Silently, the hind leg closest to the sofa was elevated and resting on the cushion.  Before we knew it, Lars was sitting squarely on my lap.  Jory was laughing and willing to share Mommy’s attention as he was displaced beside me on the sofa.



In first grade, Jory had a best friend named Gary.  One day he came home very excited because Gary had invited him to his birthday party.  It was three weeks away on a Saturday afternoon.  Jory wanted to give Gary some Legos for his birthday, so we made plans to go to the toy store. 
 

“Let's go get Gary's gift,” I called to Jory a few days later.

“I still want to buy him Legos,” Jory replied, “but Gary passed out invitations at school and I didn't get one.”

“Did you ask him why?”

“His mom said there were too many kids, so I couldn't come.”

This was the first of multiple times that Jory was not invited to birthday parties because his classmates’ moms didn't want him.  It broke my heart each time it happened, but Jory always said he understood.  “Don't feel bad, Mommy.  I'm ok.”  It was not ok with me, but it opened my eyes when I began to notice that those same moms stayed clear of me, as well.  

During the summer of that year, we enrolled Jory in a swim team.  He wasn't that athletic, but he could swim like a dolphin.  He loved the water and was eager to participate.  At the first meet, Jory made friends with a new kid.  They sat on the deck for a long time, sharing stories while waiting for their race.  When the time came, the two boys were seated in adjacent lanes.  The start gun fired, and Jory took off.  He was well ahead of his friend, when he noticed that the other boy was behind him.  He purposely slowed down and came in second in the heat.

“What happened, Jory?” I asked.  “You could have easily won that race.”

“I know,” he replied, “but my new friend really wanted to win.  I just wanted to swim, so I let him win.  It was important to him.”  

Jory circa PAL

High school opened Jory's eyes to a new kind of caring and generosity.  A noontime student club was started and Jory was one of the first to join the Peer Assistance League -- PAL.  This small group of kids gathered weekly, with a trained advisor, to become knowledgeable teens that were ready to help fellow students through peer mentoring.  He learned to identify the symptoms of depression and high risk behaviors, as well as some communication, conflict resolution, and problem solving skills.  

One evening at dinner time, the phone rang.  It was the high school.  Not an uncommon occurrence with Jory, but this time it was an automated message stating that “your student was recorded as missing one or more classes today.  Please call the school office tomorrow.”

Sam looked at Jory over the dinner table and selectively chose his words.  “Do you want to tell me about this?” he asked, enunciating each word slowly and sternly.

“Well,” began Jory.  “It was after lunch and I was walking through the quad when I saw this girl sitting on a bench.  She looked like someone thinking about suicide, just like what we had just learned about in PAL.  I decided that it was more important to sit and talk her out of it than to go to class.  She cried while she told me how all her friends had turned on her and that she didn't want to live.  We talked for a long time and I convinced her that she needed new friends and that I would be her first new friend.  When the bell rang, we both agreed to go to our next class.  I’ll look for her tomorrow.”

Jory's generosity spilled over to those outside the high school, as well.  It was a somewhat common occurrence that he came home without his shirt or jacket.

“Where's that new blue shirt that I bought you?” I'd ask.

“I gave it to this homeless guy that was sitting on the corner of State College and Dorothy Lane.”

“But Jory, that was a brand new shirt,” I continued.

“Well, he could use a new shirt.  He really loved it.”

Jory was always loyal to his favorite
 Carl's Jr. Western Bacon Cheeseburger

I discovered that he always kept an extra shirt in his car in case he saw someone on the street who really needed it.  He also had a habit of buying a meal for anyone who looked hungry.  One day we were going to lunch together and then to pick up some groceries from Costco.  We stopped at Carl's Jr., Jory's favorite place at that time, for hamburgers.  He ordered 2 Western Bacon Cheeseburgers, but only ate one.  The second was still in the bag when he said, “Lets go.”  

We drove into the Costco parking lot and he suddenly asked me to pull over.  Jumping out of the car with the Carl's Jr. bag, he ran over to the corner where a homeless man was sitting on the sidewalk.  He spoke to him briefly, then returned to the car without the bag.  “I saw him on our way to lunch, and he looked so sad and hungry.”

“I never give them money,” Jory explained.  “They might use it to buy liquor or drugs, but I always try to help anyone I see who is hungry.”

Jory bought meals for not only the hungry, but also for his friends.  He had grown up watching his Dad always pay the bills when out with friends.  The story Jory liked to recount was when our family went out for Chinese dinner with our best friend’s family.  There were 10 of us, 2 sets of parents and 6 young rambunctious boys.  The table was rectangular with the dads seated opposite each other at one end, followed by three boys on each side, and the moms at the other end.  The waiter brought the bill on a little tray, under a handful of candy mints.  Both Sam and John lurched for the bill, causing the candies to fly into the air.  Of course, Sam was victorious and the candies were later distributed to the kids, who watched with wide open eyes as their Dads each pulled back and forth on that small piece of paper. 

Unbeknownst to us, the waiter was also watching this tug-of-war.  When payment for the meal was placed on top of that same piece of paper on the little tray, the meek waiter was afraid to retrieve it.  After pondering his daunting task, he decided to try distraction by lobbing a huge handful of mints onto the table and slipping out the tray during the scrabble for the candies.  To his surprise, when the mints flew out of his hand in a high arch and landed like hail on the hard table, everyone sat silently and perfectly still, shocked that the waiter was pelting us.  Soon, we burst into laughter when we all realized the waiter thought the dads were fighting over the candy, not the bill.  

Flier that Jory posted at CalArts

At CalArts, Jory made friends easily, as he was always eager to help out and share his talents and whatever else he had or knew.  He offered to write the music for animators who were making short films, and got to know them all.  Vincent was one of those talented animators, who also had an interesting history.  He was an orphan who had come through the foster care system and was on a need-based scholarship at CalArts.  He was always scrambling to find small jobs to make up for his non-existent income.  He was also techie, like Jory, so together they explored the fairly new art of designing websites.

Finding clients was challenging and Vincent was struggling to find ones who could actually pay for his services.  Times were rough and Jory wanted to help him out, so he invited Vincent to join him and his roommate, Rob, in the small apartment that they shared off campus.  He lived there most of their senior year of college.  It wasn't until after graduation, when we were helping Jory move out of the apartment, that we found out that we had unknowingly been footing the bill for two.

“Vincent is alone in this world, Dad,” explained Jory.  “We had to help him out.”

The Hobbit Hole was through the little white door under the house.

This wasn't the only time that Jory had generously sheltered someone in need.  He met a guy in Fairfax who was living on the streets in his car.  “He was such a nice guy, but he needed a hand, so I let him live with me in my Hobbit Hole until he could get a place for himself,” explained Jory.

Housing in Fairfax is varied, to say the least.  When Jory first moved to Marin, he found an apartment in Novato, but after the first year, he decided that Fairfax was the place for him.  He lived in several substandard rentals in order to be near the music venues that magnetically drew him in every evening.  One of these rentals was a dilapidated wooden shack, formerly referred to as a guest cabin, built in the 1920’s, in The Marin Town and Country Club, which was closed down in 1972.  He had one small room and a makeshift bathroom, but no space for his work equipment, so he searched for an additional space that he could use for his studio.  

Someone introduced Jory to a woman who was living in a house in Fairfax with an empty garden shed in her backyard.  She was short of funds and was happy to rent out the aluminum shed, so Jory gave her six hundred dollars for the first and last months’ rent.  She gave him the key to the shed.  

Peri's Silver Dollar Club and live music venue

We happened to be visiting Jory in Fairfax, and of course, he took us to one of his favorite clubs in town, Peri's.  The music was plentiful and the venue was packed with local musicians, including a couple of famous ones.  We were sitting around a small table when a jittery woman approached Jory.

“I can't rent out the shed,” she blurted out.  “My two big dogs will be upset if you are in the backyard.  I need my key back.”

Jory stood up, reached into his pocket, and handed her the key to the shed.  She turned around and headed for the door.

“Did she give you back your deposit?” Sam asked Jory.  “You never took possession, so she's not entitled to keep it and you really need that money.  You're not making very much right now.”

“She needs it more that I do,” replied Jory.  “She's having a tough time.”

Jory was being Jory.

COMMENTS:  

Click on Jorysmother@gmail.com to send comments.

Jory Prum  (2009)
I love helping people. I help nearly anyone who asks, sometimes to my own detriment.  

Mary B.

God, Leslye, you sure got me crying when I read about Jory talking that girl out of suicide!

Marilyn M.

These are great stories. Jory was SOOOO amazing! It does my heart good to hear that someone can be so kind and generous. These really do need to be published. 

Elaine S.

Can’t tell you how much I enjoy reading your blogs about Jory. Promised to take my Harvey to lunch today. It’s now 2 pm and I just finished reading your 2 most recent blogs. Harvey’s  been pacing. I’ve been reading your gems. Now we can go for a very late lunch. Thank you so much for the pleasurable reading.

Barbara L.

Thanks for sharing . What a wonderful and generous human being Jory was with a heart of gold.  When I grew up in SF we would go to Marin Town and Country Club. It was one of my favorite places to hang out and go swimming. We also went to Stinson Beach.  Cherish your memories.

Erin K.

Loved this!  Thank you :)

Mark W.
I met Jory at CalArts, he helped with my film and I was amazed at his knowledge. Most of all I remember his positivity, energy, and warmth. But reading this makes me proud to have been his friend.

Judy S.

Your stories about Jory would make an excellent book.  If you want to do it, it is a great idea.

Marcia J.

Lovely. So happy you are sharing these stories. It seems they have an appreciative audience, too.

Lynette N.

This was truly a beautiful story of a child born with an extra gene. 

  

©   Leslye J. Prum   2017  All Rights Reserved