So much has been written about Jim. Much of it is best summarized by my friend, Justin Gehtland:
But the measure of the man is that you could not help but love him, and that he could not help but love you.
Paid to do Ruby: How we started working together?
So many people attribute their getting into Ruby to the infectious excitement that Jim displayed for this language. Back in 2007, EdgeCase (now Neo) was less than a year old. It was an exciting time as Rails was gaining initial traction in the marketplace. There were finally more than one or two people at CRB who would raise their hands and say they were getting paid to program in Ruby.
We coordinated a single day Ruby Code Camp and Jim came up with many other rubyists from Cincinnati. Thankfully, Jim’s close friend, Chris Nelson, attended as well. My fellow co-founder, Joe O’Brien, came up to me at some point during the training. Bouncing up and down with a huge smile on his face, he said something like, “How cool would it be if we could work with Jim!”
We were barely nine months old. We didn’t really know what we were doing (in my mind at least). Why would he want to risk joining a Ruby based startup? Doesn’t he have college-aged kids? These were the questions running around in my head.
Well, Chris went to work on Jim and Joe went to work on me. Looking back now, I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to work with Jim, to attend his training sessions, to be trained with him, to collaborate with him, to hear from clients about the impact he had on their teams.
The tears
Jim made everyone around him feel comfortable, important, and encouraged. I’ve cried dozens of times in the past two days. I’m crying again as I write this. Writing our tribute, reading countless tweets about Jim and the seamingly endless comments on his last commit up on GitHub – all of these things brought me to tears as I remembered talking with Jim just a couple weeks ago while we were both attending a Clojure training.
The hope
Inevitably, these tears subside and I see a man who impacted others in such a consistent manner – loving everyone, open to all. My tears subside also due to hope and joy. I have hope in the Greek sense of the word, ἐλπίς (elpis), which differs from how we typically use the word hope in English today. In our vernacular, hope typically expresses a desire. Elpis is stronger. It conveys an expectation with certainty. Something promised that hasn’t yet arrived.
This is the hope I have when I think of Jim, an expectation to see him again.
You see a good man – a great man – like Jim pass away and and it gets right up in your face just how wrong death is. My hope is a hope shared with Jim – that we will see each other again in Heaven. Jim loved others from a source of love so great. That source of love, God, hates death. He wept at the death scene of a man he would raise from the dead. Jesus, also said:
…you too have grief now; but I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you.
Jim lived out his faith in Christ everyday. You all experienced it.
Many of us are inspired to be more like Jim. I’ll leave you with this question. Will you consider why Jim was the way he was? If Jim were leaning over your shoulder would he want you to focus on just being a good person? Jim was all about relationships. God is all about relationships.
I invite you to look closely at where life is heading. I’m confident that Jim is in a better place and I know my heart will rejoice when I see him.