Come in and know me better, man.
As I have been struggling to process the death of my father, lovingly known as Bear and Bearpaw (Grandpa), certain aspects of my relationship with him continue to surface repeatedly. One of them was staring me in the face, literally. I found a picture of my dad with my sons that I had forgotten about. I took it at our annual outing to see A Christmas Carol performed by Gerald Charles Dickens, Charles Dickens’ great great grandson. It was our fourth year at the show and Bearpaw was goofing off with the boys while waiting in line for photos with Mr. Dickens. The boys had worn their Dickens hats and Bearpaw had covered Younger Son’s face with his hat. Then he dropped the hat down and I captured a beautiful picture of the three of them, full of the Christmas spirit, full of love, full of joy.
This picture shows Bear’s love of love. His love of his grandchildren. His love of life. I realized only now as I have been missing him terribly why he loved this particular version of A Christmas Carol so much.
First, he got to share it each year with his family. The boys were six and eight the first year we went. It’s tradition now. And yet every year we forget when we’re supposed to participate. (Ooh, ahh…!) Bear also loved that every year Dickens would tweak the script, the story parts a little bit.
That was his second love of A Christmas Carol. It’s one of the greatest stories. And my dad loved to tell stories (good and bad)! He loved the art of storytelling and appreciated the details, the characters, the shared human experiences.
When Scrooge is with the Ghost of Christmas Present, “Come in and know me better, man”, we hear the stories of the people, the food they ate, the games they played. Bear celebrated many days that way. Special occasions and regular ones. Scrooge discovered the importance of living life in the past, present, and future. Bear lived his life this way. He held the past, present, and future in his heart.
On Easter, Bearpaw would create the wonderful Easter egg hunt for the boys and the boys would miss standard eggs each year. Bearpaw would laugh each year. He added little clues and goofy challenges to add more fun.
On Christmas as we sat around the dinner table feeling full and blessed, Bear would pass around the lottery game tickets and he would sit with the biggest smile on his face as we furiously scratched off the silver covering to see if we won.
On any day he would add games and laughter, whether it was telling you about a spot on your shirt (and then gently flicking your nose as you looked down) or “fixing his toupee” (he could move his scalp to make his hair look out of place and then “shift” it back into place). I still can’t do that trick!
And, like the Ghost of Christmas Present, he wanted folks to come in and know him better, man and in turn get to know them better too. He loved chatting with people he would meet. Sharing experiences, discovering what he and the person might have in common. All it took was a little time to share together and in a few minutes of talking with my father, you knew you had come in and known him better, man.
His life was full of love. There were rough times. There were sad times. But Bear always was full of love. He loved index cards-he used them every day, for categorizing things, saving notes, reminders. He loved index cards and paper plates, but index cards were more portable (fit right in his front shirt pocket). I found one the night he died on which he had written:
“Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Tomorrow is another new day.”
a quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson. Below the quote he wrote, in parentheses, the word “over”. Upon turning the card over, you read this quote from Goethe,
“There is nothing worth more than this day.”
And then again in parentheses, below the quote, the word “over”. With a simple index card he had created a perpetual motivator. Something to remind him that each day was so valuable and to live each day the best you could. And Bear did. He lived each day to the fullest, carrying the past, present, and future in his heart.
So remember from my father these pieces of advice.
From Emerson, “Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Tomorrow is another new day.”
From Goethe, “There is nothing worth more than this day.”
From my dad, “Stand tall, shoulders back, head up.”
And from Dickens, “Come in and know me better, man.”
Try it with the next person you meet. Go in and know him better, man.
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