Enjoy.
Detroit Lions’ Jerome Harrison leans on ‘Diamond’ wife throughout recovery from brain tumor
Jerome Harrison delicately walked toward the restaurant door as his wife parked their SUV.
His smile arrived long before his hand grabbed the entrance handle.
A few moments later, Michelle, his wife who he has been close with since they met at Kalamazoo Central High School, arrived beaming brighter than the sun behind her.
“This is my wife, Diamond,” Jerome said.
“You can call me Michelle,” she quickly replied.
Jerome’s nickname for his wife is playful, but the veiled meaning is appropriate.
A diamond is one of the hardest natural substances on earth. It is harder than the majority of minerals on this planet. Even though diamonds can be broken, they still remain valuable.
Nothing better describes the woman who was informed her husband had been traded from the Detroit Lions to the Philadelphia Eagles, but later learned he might die from a brain tumor.
She put her career on hold to spend every day in the hospital with her husband while six months pregnant with their second child. When medical personnel told her not to have high hopes for her husband’s recovery, she had faith when most people had doubt. It was Michelle who fought her husband’s depression when he didn’t want to live. When Jerome did not have control of his lower extremities, Michelle is the one who patiently wiped him everyday.
“That is pure amazing,” Jerome said. “At the time, I was an independent brother, so if she supported me, so what? If she didn’t, so what? But to see somebody have your back like that? It is amazing. No matter the scenario, she is going to be there, whether you like it or don’t like it. My wife is going to be there.
“You learn how to appreciate it. She doesn’t know this, but there have been many a day that she has kept me going when I wanted to give up. That’s what can’t be expressed. You can’t put a dollar amount on that.”
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