Person on the inside matters most, says US couple with record height difference
Jessica Burns-McDonnell from West Virginia and Larry McDonnell took over the world record from a UK-based couple
www.theguardian.com
A West Virginia woman who set a world record by marrying a man who is nearly three feet shorter than she is says the couple is a testament to how “what’s really important” in a spouse is “the person … on the inside”.
“I mean, you might find a person who looks exactly like what you want but you need someone who makes you feel and think and love,” Jessica Burns-McDonnell, 40, remarked in an interview about her and her relationship with husband Larry McDonnell, 42, published Monday by Guinness World Records.
“That’s what I got with Larry, and I don’t think there’s anybody out there that’s taller than Larry that could come close.”
The McDonnells in December secured the Guinness world record for greatest height differential in a married couple with different sexes and in which the woman is taller, according to the organization.
Larry McDonnell said he got the idea for him and his wife to apply to be considered for the Guinness world record in that specific category after reading an article online about the previous holders of the mark, James and Chloe Lusted of the UK.
Standing at 3ft (91.4cm), Larry said the article made him realize he was shorter than James; the 5ft 10in (1.8m) Jessica was taller than Chloe; and the 2ft 9in (86.4cm) height difference between the McDonnells was almost a foot greater than that of the Lusteds.
The newly gained recognition from the organization known for maintaining a database of more than 40,000 world records gave the McDonnells the occasion to share their love story on a global stage.
As they told it, they met when Larry – who was born with diastrophic dwarfism – was held back in the first grade and landed in the same elementary school as Jessica. They frequented the same friend group growing up and found themselves drawn to each other, with friends often commenting on their natural chemistry and telling them that they should just pair up already.
Yet they kept things platonic for a while, at least in part because Jessica had a boyfriend, the couple said after appearing on the Guinness organization’s Italian TV series Lo Show dei Record.
The duo “started looking at each other differently” and embarked on a romance in the summer of 2006 after Jessica broke up with her boyfriend.
“She was the first person I could actually be me around,” Larry said to the Guinness World Records site about Jessica. “She laughed at my stupid jokes and everything she talked about, I loved.”
Jessica added: “I could be weird, and he could be himself, and it just worked. It was fun.”
Larry – who gets around with a mobility scooter and whose passion for martial arts has previously earned him news coverage – recalled nervously proposing to Jessica on what was the 28th anniversary of his parents’ first date.
She said yes. They were married by the end of 2006, months into their courtship, and have had four children: Olivia, 16; Daxx, 15; Victoria, 12; and Felix, 1.
The couple from South Charleston, West Virginia, supported their family for a time by each working at their state’s homeland security department. Jessica remains in that job, but Larry has since transferred to a department where he oversees purchases for all of West Virginia’s state agencies.
Despite the switch in their professional circumstances, they said their attraction for each other burns as bright as ever.
“When I have my arms around her, she feels like home, and all the turmoil that’s going on in the world, it goes away, and it’s just me and her and it’s the most peaceful thing ever,” he told Guinness World Records. “She’s always been there in my corner pushing me and coaching me and helping me.”
Jessica acknowledged “ups and … downs” through nearly two decades of marriage – as well as the view held by some in society that it’s unusual for women to date shorter men.
But she explained that what means the most to her is the way Larry has “been the person where I literally could not get up off the floor and he’s said, ‘I will pick you up and make it all right.’”
“Some of our downs have been really down and he has been my rock,” Jessica said to Guinness World Records. “For me, if you’re so busy focusing on the outside, you’re probably not focusing on what’s really important and that’s who the person is on the inside.”
