The whispering voice that delivered a booming message to Hilton Head Island | Opinion

David Jones Jr. got a bum deal in life.

He was a robust, 24-year-old shrimper on Hilton Head Island — like his father and grandfather before him — when he was struck down by a rare virus called transverse myelitis.

In a matter of hours, he went from a burning pain in his back to being paralyzed from the neck down. He cried at the hospital, knowing he would never hold his 3-month-old son.

David had already lost his own father to a brain tumor at 46, and the family troubles would continue. His mother, who was his primary caregiver, died of cancer at age 61. His brother was temporarily paralyzed from a car wreck. COVID-19 made it difficult to get home nursing care. And about two years ago, his house burned.

And yet it’s clear following David’s death Sept. 15 at age 51 that his life of bum deals was a life of great purpose.

His family is important to Hilton Head’s story. His father was known as David Jones the Second to distinguish him from another well-known leader of the Gullah community known as David Jones No. 1.

David Jones the Second helped steer the Capt. Dave shrimp boat 777 miles from Hilton Head to Washington, D.C. — and into the history books. In 1970, the 43-foot trawler carried 45,000 petition signatures and 25 pounds of shrimp to the Secretary of the Interior – the most visible part of the successful fight to stop a BASF petrochemical plant from locating on the Colleton River, with its feared pollution seen as a threat to commercial fishing and real estate sales.

I met David when his Hilton Head Island High School class of 1991 raised $36,000 to buy him a van so he could get out of the house. That was 17 years after they graduated. And that, too, was important to Hilton Head, showing that it had a heart, and roots.

By then, David had a respirator hooked into his throat so that he could talk.

It was not a clear, booming voice, but he had a clear and booming message.

“I’ve always had a desire to walk again,” he told me. “I will continue to keep that alive, not only for me but for my son and other people who think they may be in worse situations. With hope, anything can be achieved.”

He said he wanted to help able-bodied people to live with greater faith and hope.

“It is my heart’s desire to speak so that I may inspire one person. And it would be my hope that one person would use that inspiration to inspire one other person. And from that there would be a tagline of inspiration spread.

“Take a look at me and then ask yourself, ‘How bad is that problem?’ It’s not really that bad.”

By then, David could work a computer by voice command. He sent emails, wrote letters, manipulated pictures and read books on his computer. He worked the phone to keep up with friends, who called him a positive influence. He moved about in a wheelchair he controlled with puffs of breath, using air that got piped into his limp lungs through a respirator.

And then-Gov. Nikki Haley appointed David to a three-year term on the S.C. Independent Living Council, a nonprofit organization “committed to equal opportunity, equal access, self-determination, independence and choice for all people with disabilities.”

David, who had every excuse to whine, was instead a great encourager.

His high school friend Julie Jones recited one of David’s sayings that helped her through life’s rough patches: “If you’re going to worry, don’t pray. If you’re going to pray, don’t worry.”

Until his last breath, David was watched over by his family and the Christian Renewal Church, where his funeral was held Sept. 28.

Pastor Brad Steele said, “David never asked, ‘Why me?’ He was always asking to be of service.”

David left us with this advice about our own bum deals: “It allowed me to see things in a different light. It allowed me to focus on the positive things of life that I could control, and that’s what I did.”