Jarrod

Quick Facts

• Role: Grieving neighbor whose story embodies the book’s thesis about choosing to be “unoffendable”
• First appearance: Chapter 19
• Setting: Suburban neighborhood; aftermath of a fatal car accident
• Key relationships: Wife Andrea (deceased), neighbor Brant Hansen, his young son
• Status: Widower and single father who, after years of mourning, eventually moves closer to family and begins a new relationship

Who They Are

Grief is the whole shape of Jarrod. The narrative withholds physical description, forcing attention onto his inner collapse—shock, anger, longing, and the exhausting oscillations between them. His presence in the story is a raw test case for what love looks like in practice: not tidy counsel but sustained nearness, a willingness to absorb pain without flinching. Through him, the chapter shows that some people aren’t “difficult”; they’re devastated—and ministry means staying anyway, embodying the book’s ethic of presence and the costly work of Grace and Forgiveness.

Personality & Traits

Jarrod’s personality is defined by bereavement—erratic, needy, and honest in a way grief makes unavoidable. Instead of traits that tidy him up, the text gives us symptoms of trauma. That absence is meaningful: the point isn’t who he was before the crash, but who pain has made him now.

• Emotionally volatile: He cycles through “wild swings of optimism, despondency, gratitude, and abject rudeness,” revealing how grief scrambles affect and social cues.
• Grief-stricken and angry at faith’s center: He believes in God and is furious with Him—a tension that keeps him talking rather than shutting down.
• Taxing to be around: “He wasn’t able to be a fun, encouraging friend,” and the narrative refuses to sanitize that; it allows the weight of his company to be felt.
• Desperate for connection: In their first encounter, he talks for more than two hours about Andrea and the accident—proof that testimony itself is triage.
• Defined by interiority: No physical details; what we’re “shown” is the wreckage of his inner life and its social fallout.

Character Journey

Jarrod’s arc is slow and jagged, not cinematic. He begins in total devastation after the crash that killed Andrea and endangered their son. Neighbors avoid him; he is volatile, lonely, and spiritually combative. Then a counter-movement begins when Brant knocks on his door. Over two years, Jarrod doesn’t become easy; instead, Brant becomes steadfast, absorbing mood swings and hurt without taking offense. That durable presence steadies Jarrod enough that, in time, he regains forward motion—moving closer to family and tentatively starting a new relationship. The point isn’t a miracle turnaround; it’s that healing travels at grief’s pace, and someone’s unoffendable companionship can make movement possible at all.

Key Relationships

• Andrea: Jarrod’s love for Andrea saturates his conversations; memories of her organize his identity after the crash. Speaking about her—often and at length—keeps her present and exposes how bereavement fuses love and pain. She remains the center of his world even as that world has collapsed.
• Brant Hansen: As the neighbor who chooses to show up, Brant becomes a faithful witness to Jarrod’s worst days. Their relationship dramatizes the theme of The Choice to Be Unoffendable: Brant does not correct Jarrod into health; he outlasts his volatility with quiet, nonjudgmental presence.
• His son: The surviving child is both a lifeline and a burden of responsibility—Jarrod’s living tie to Andrea and the reason he must keep moving. Parenting through grief underscores the story’s stakes: love must function even when the heart can’t.

Defining Moments

Jarrod’s life is reframed by a few searing events and choices that reveal who he is becoming under grief’s pressure.

• The crash
  • What happens: He swerves to avoid something in the road; the car flips into a ditch and sinks “into the water and Florida muck.” He pounds on the windows with a shovel, trying to save his family.
  • Why it matters: The scene crystallizes helplessness—Jarrod’s guilt, terror, and love fused in futile action. It explains the later volatility without excusing cruelty; it humanizes it.
• The knock on the door
  • What happens: With other neighbors avoiding him, Brant shows up to offer condolences and stays to listen.
  • Why it matters: This is the hinge of Jarrod’s arc; someone chooses relationship over retreat, and that choice creates the first safe space for grief to speak.
• The first marathon conversation
  • What happens: Jarrod talks for more than two hours about Andrea and the accident.
  • Why it matters: His need to narrate is a survival instinct. Being heard lowers the pressure inside him and begins a long, non-linear path toward stability.
• The decision to move and begin anew
  • What happens: After years of mourning, Jarrod relocates to be near family and starts a new relationship.
  • Why it matters: Not a neat resolution, but proof of momentum. The step signals that love for Andrea and hope for the future can coexist.

Essential Quotes

He had wild swings of optimism, despondency, gratitude, and abject rudeness.

This line refuses euphemism. It names grief’s whiplash honestly, inviting empathy rather than judgment. The specificity (“optimism…despondency…gratitude…rudeness”) maps the chaos others had to endure—and Brant chose to.

He wasn’t able to be a fun, encouraging friend. It just wasn’t possible.

The sentence protects Jarrod from moralizing while protecting truth from sentimentality. By saying “not possible,” the book frames limits as part of compassion’s calculus: ministry sometimes means absorbing what a person cannot give.

He asked me if I was religious or something. I told him I was a Christian. He said it makes sense, because his other neighbors run away from him. The ones he’d been social with now just looked at him and looked away and hustled inside their homes.

This moment exposes the social cost of grief—how pain isolates precisely when it most needs company. Against that backdrop, Brant’s simple presence becomes radical. The contrast sharpens the book’s claim: choosing to be unoffendable looks like moving toward the wounded when others avert their eyes.