There is no person that love cannot heal. There is no soul that love cannot save. Indeed,
there is no saving to be done at all, for love is what every soul is. And when you give the soul
of another what it is, you have given it back to itself.
That’s what I have said that You do for us! And that has become the mission statement of my
foundation. That’s what came to me when I was trying to write the mission statement: To give
people back to themselves.
Do you think this was by accident?
I suppose by now I should know better.
Perhaps you should.
Nothing is by accident, is it?
Nothing.
Not my getting into radio, not my going to live in the South, not my being offered a job at an
all-black radio station, and not my meeting with Jay Jackson at The Evening Capital. ft’s all
been very non-accidental, hasn’t it?
Yes.
I think I knew that the first time Jay and I met. There seemed to be something fated between
us. I can’t explain it; it’s just a feeling I had, almost from the moment I stepped into his office.
I was nervous, yes, because I desperately needed work. But I had a sense that things were
going to turn out all right almost immediately after I sat down.
Jay was a wonderful man. As I grew to know him, I found him to be compassionate, deeply
understanding of the human condition, incredibly friendly, and most of all, humanly kind.
Everyone loved him.
And Jay saw the positive in everyone. He gave everyone a chance. And then a second
chance, and a third. Working for him was a dream. When you did something good, he never
missed it. You’d get a note immediately, always in felt-tipped pen: Nice job on the budget
story. or, Re: interview with the nun—JUST GREAT! These notes flew off his desk in a flurry;
you could find them all over the newsroom, every day.
I loved Jay, and I couldn’t believe it when he died so young.
He was in his mid-forties, I would guess, and had some kind of stomach problem. Or maybe
it was something much larger, I don’t know. All I know is that in the last months I worked
along side him, he was eating nothing but mush. Baby food, mainly. Or oatmeal. That’s the
only kind of stuff he could eat.
We were at The Anne Arundel Times then. The Evening Capita/had been purchased, and
Jay, along with his father and brother, had bought another small paper and turned it into a
weekly serving all of Anne Arundel County (Annapolis was the county seat). I was still working
at the Capita/when Jay called and offered me a job as the founding managing editor of the
Times. It took me two seconds to decide.