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12 t m c » p u l s e | m ay 2 0 1 9 I talked to the people I knew at the Texas Medical Center. Linda searched the internet and we finally found a lady who recommended The Menninger Clinic, then in Topeka, Kansas. We took Liz up there and she went to six or eight weeks of intensive therapy, then came back to Houston and had another relapse. By that time, Menninger had moved to Houston. It's been a long journey, but we learned a lot and, knock on wood, she's doing well, although she continues to battle the mental illness every day. Q | What were some of the most difficult experiences you remember as she was struggling with her condition? A | Her being suicidal was extremely tough on the whole family—especially on her—and for her to be unable to control those rituals and com- pulsions that she knew made no sense and were illogical, but she had to do them anyway because of mental illness. All that was extremely tough. But you know, we're people of faith and you've got to keep the faith. You've got to just keep believing. We all want to be life forces for good, and my life force says that the good Lord never sends any of us anything we can't handle. Q | How do you determine which issues and organizations to support? A | I think the majority of people, when it comes to philanthropy, probably give to things that have affected them personally. My beloved brother and my father both died of congestive heart failure, so that's why I'm involved in BiVACOR. I've had some mini strokes and this and that, that's why I'm involved with the Mobile Stroke Unit, which is a partnership between UTHealth and Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center. At the same time, we give a lot to education and things that we deem are good for the city, good for the state. Q | You opened Gallery Furniture to victims of Hurricane Harvey. What was going through your mind when you decided to offer up your business as a massive crashpad? A | I was up at the front desk and the phone was ringing off the wall and the emails were exploding and the text messages were ding, ding, ding— nonstop, people saying, 'Come rescue us! We're going to drown!' We'd done a pretty good job of preparing for the hurricane by having all these big trucks here get through a lot of water, but what we hadn't pre- pared for was the fact that none of our employees could get to work because they were all flooded in, too. I did a Facebook Live and put out a notice we needed people with commercial drivers' licenses to come drive these trucks and rescue people. They came in and we sent them out. We had to get in the game real quick. There wasn't a lot of planning. That's the way I was brought up: Do the right thing and worry about the cost of whatever later. And that's what we did. We were all energized, the ones of us that were here doing it, by the courage of the people that we brought in. They waded through four to six to eight feet of dirty water to get here and they were devastated, but they had a good, positive attitude. You saw the strength of the human spirit. Q | What is your most poignant memory from that time? A | I think the first night we had 200, 300 people sleeping in here, so we had the air conditioning cranked down real cold. They were sleeping in furniture blankets, the only blankets we had. But they were sleeping on these couches, on the mat- tresses, they were sleeping everywhere. It was still raining very heavy outside—very hot, very humid, but it was cold in here. About 2 o'clock in the morning, the door opened and this little girl came in with her people— I believe her parents and her uncle. They were all four just sopping wet because they had waded through three or four feet of dirty water on the feeder road. She was the only one out of the four who spoke any English. She saw me up there, but she was afraid to come up to me. Finally, I motioned for her. She's wet and hot and trauma- tized and dirty and scared to death. Now she's freezing because she's in this cold furniture store and her little teeth are chattering. She comes up to me and says, 'Can we stay here tonight?' That was it. It was a no-brainer. That's the way I was brought up. You worry about people, not about money. Money, you can make some more tomor- row, but people, you only get one shot. Q | It's clear that you care very deeply about Houston. What do you love most about the city? A | I think the fact that nobody in Houston asks you where you're from or what your educational level is. Houston gives everybody an opportunity to do well. All Houston ever said to me was, 'Kid, here's a chance for you. A chance to succeed, a chance to fail. It's totally up to you how hard you want to work to succeed.' And I think that's the story of Houston. We're multicultural, multiethnic and anybody can succeed in Houston if they want to roll up their sleeves and go to work. Jim McIngvale was interviewed by Pulse staff writer Shanley Pierce. The conversation was edited for clarity and length. Spotlight Houston gives everybody an opportunity to do well. All Houston ever said to me was, 'Kid, here's a chance for you. A chance to succeed, a chance to fail. It's totally up to you how hard you want to work to succeed.'