The first thing visitors notice is the man in a wheelchair. Then, from the far side of the room in the North Portland apartment, the soft sound of the ventilator that keeps him alive.

Kevin Jeans Gail once rode bikes, swam and hiked. He set hard picks and used elbows while playing basketball against men half his age. Now, at age 67, he’s paralyzed below the shoulders.

When we learn of someone who has endured a stunning reversal in life, we wonder how we’d handle it ourselves.

Jeans Gail has suffered two tragedies that struck at the heart of what it means to be a husband and father.

To survive both, he turned to his sons.

***

Three days after Christmas in 2003, everything changed for Jeans Gail.

His wife and daughter, the couple’s oldest child, were driving to Bend. Their car hit ice, spun out of control and slammed into another vehicle. The two died.

At their funeral, in a scene none who were there can forget, Jeans Gail rose. He delivered their eulogy, two caskets in front of him in a church filled with mourners who wondered how he would manage to raise two sons by himself.

His wife had been the one to nurture the children, the one they turned to for comfort. Jeans Gail had always been the hard-charging task master.

Now, he had to assume a dual role. He was forced to find his softer side. He became a better father.

He openly expressed his loved for his sons, Conor and Sean, and hugged them frequently. They were the focus of his life. Loving and caring for them gave him hope and purpose at a time when there seemed to be none.

Shared dinners, laundry, shopping at the grocery store, getting them off to school and sorting through the storms of adolescence. He talked with them about what they were feeling, something his own father hadn’t done with him.

The boys were thrilled when their father met and began dating Sue Brent, then a Cleveland High School vice principal who had been divorced for 15 years and raised three kids by herself. When Brent married their father, his sons believed he deserved a second chance at love given all he’d been through.

A year and a half ago in September 2017, Jeans Gail’s equilibrium shattered again.

He and his wife flew from Portland to the East Coast for a reunion with his family, many of them still living near Philadelphia, where he was raised.

Within hours of arriving, Jeans Gail decided to go for a swim in the Atlantic Ocean at Delaware Beach. One of his brothers noticed him floating and called to another brother, also swimming. The two men pulled him to shore.

Jeans Gail wasn’t breathing. A nurse and dentist who happened to be on the beach performed CPR.

No one knows for certain what happened. But they believe Jeans Gail, caught in a riptide, had tried swimming back to shore. Powerful waves caused him to tumble as if in a washing machine, slamming his body into the sand.

At the hospital, doctors determined he had suffered a traumatic spinal injury. He was airlifted to a Philadelphia hospital. He spent three months getting treatment and rehabilitation before telling his wife and doctors that he wanted to go home to Portland.

He arrived a week before Christmas. He lived in a long-term care center, then at a rehab center where he received daily treatment. When doctors said there was nothing more they could do, Jeans Gail was released.

Unable to go to his home because it couldn’t accommodate his wheelchair, he and his wife in April 2018 moved into a two-bedroom apartment. They hope to eventually remodel the old family home to make it accessible for Jeans Gail.

His voice is soft, with pauses as the ventilator breathes life into him.

“My mother once told me life isn’t fair.”

Pause.

“She’s right.

Pause.

“But,” he said, “I have a wonderful life.”

Notice a crucial word?

Have.

Not had.

“My story isn’t finished,” he said. “I still want to make a difference.”

***

His mission in life has been to search for ways to improve the lives of others, people of all ages who have little hope, those with no voice to reach those in power.

In the 1980s, he and his first wife, Victoria, became involved in a series of community projects, ultimately taking on leadership roles at the Metropolitan Alliance for Common Good. The coalition of churches, unions and community groups worked to find housing and jobs for low-income people.

He was so well-connected that he was recruited by Jim Francesconi, a Portland city councilman, to be his chief of staff. Not only did Jeans Gail run the office, he built relationships with city bureaus and worked to make slogans and political promises a reality.

“People loved Kevin because he was not seen as a politician,” Francesconi said. “He did what was best for the people of this city.”

After Francesconi lost his bid for mayor and left public life, Jeans Gail moved on. He founded the Portland Workforce Alliance, a nonprofit that connects high school kids with local businesses to get job experience.

He believed it’s critical that young people see a path in life, exposing them to mentors who would show them that by staying in high school and attending community colleges or universities, they could get good jobs that would allow them to raise families and contribute to the community.

When the program began, the alliance worked with 23 students. Last year, more than 1,400 students participated. Jeans Gail led the organization for 13 years and planned to retire in a few years.

Then came the accident in the Atlantic.

“So many waves of grief,” said Brent. “I sobbed in the hospital. I lost it. I learned to take it one day at a time. We are both people of deep faith, and both Kevin and I trust in a higher power.”

While her husband’s body is broken, Brent said his spirit -- the essence of the man – is intact. She loves him, in many ways, now more than she ever has.

And yet she’s honest.

“Life is not all wine and roses,” Brent said. “I don’t want people to think I'm a Pollyanna or that we don’t feel the pain.”

In addition to the help his wife provides, Jeans Gail requires constant care from a team of five aides, including a nurse and a certified nursing assistant. It takes two people to get him in bed at night and to get him up to start his day. He is driven to a hospital for physical therapy and his wife helps him with more PT in the apartment each day in the hopes he will regain use of his limbs.

***

Jeans Gail has accepted that he may not be cured.

“But I can be healed,” he said. It has less to do with his body and more with his spirit, he said.

“To be healed is to accept that I’m not in control,” he said. “To be healed is to let go of the hurt and pain and anger. To see the goodness in life and to be loved and to love.”

The foundation of his life is the love of the people he describes as his angels, his wife and boys.

“I’m continuing to grow as a father,” he said. “I have accepted I need their help.”

Jeans Gail never saw his father cry.

“Men were supposed to be strong,” he said. “My Lord, I cry now.”

Not from the sadness you would expect.

He cries for the love he feels for those closest to him. For the second time in his life, his boys give him a reason to not give up.

“My sons lost their mother,” he said. “I never wanted them to be orphans.”

Already, he’s thinking about how he can continue to help young people. He keeps up on current events, politics and the state of the city, state and nation. One day, he hopes to visit a nearby school to talk with kids. Not about his life, but their lives. He wants to discuss current events, encourage them to read and learn, to vote and make their voices heard.

“The last place I want to be is on a mountain, by myself and contemplating life,” he said. “As humans, we need to be part of something bigger than ourselves. In doing that, we grow and help others grow.”

When Jeans Gail heard a group of students with the Portland Workforce Alliance would be at a career day at Legacy Emanuel Medical Center near his apartment, Jeans Gail asked if he could come over to say a few words.

They all gathered after the students had completed a course in CPR. He asked what they liked about learning CPR. Silence. He asked if it was hard. Every student in the room raised a hand.

“I told them life is hard,” said Jeans Gail. “I told them my story. If two strangers did not know CPR, I would not be alive.”

Everyone in that room, he said, now had a chance to save the life of someone they had yet to meet.

The lessons the young people had learned earlier in the day were no longer theory.

This was real.

They applauded the messenger.

***

Would you want to live like Jeans Gail?

He understands the question and doesn’t consider it insensitive. He has asked, and answered, the question in the days, weeks and months that followed that afternoon in the ocean.

Life, he said, is precious.

As Father’s Day approached, his sons made plans to be with him.

Sean Jeans Gail, 36, lives and works in Washington, D.C. He’s coming to Portland for a month. His boss gave him permission to telecommute, allowing him to be with his father.

“I’d be angry and bitter if I was in my father’s spot,” he said. “I’m impressed by my father’s unflagging spirit. When my mother and sister died, he said the way to honor them was to live life to the fullest. My father conveys a sense of gratitude I aspire to.”

Because he lives in Portland, Conor Jeans Gail, 31, frequently sees his father and helps with physical therapy. He slips his hands under his father’s clothes, attaching lines that provide electric stimulation to Jeans Gail’s muscles through pads the son sticks to his father’s skin.

“It’s intimate,” he said. “It was an adjustment for me. If roles were reversed, he’d be there for me.”

A man in a wheelchair, the soft sound of the machine that keeps him alive.

“He’s still my father,” Conor said. “Still my father.”

--Tom Hallman Jr.

thallman@oregonian.com; 503 221-8224

@thallmanjr