The Heart of a Bear

I wish I had some deep insight after losing so many close friends in such a short amount of time. Instead, I often feel numb. Maybe it’s my way of bracing for more loss.

Mar 15, 2024

“I think about you often, Bear, and wonder how you’re doing. Man, I wish I could jump into a car and come and see you. I just looked it up and you are 1,130 miles away from Omaha. That’s a long, long drive. My leg wouldn’t bear it well, I’m afraid. But maybe we can arrange a FaceTime chat on Heather’s phone soon? I’d love to see your face. Let me know if you’re feeling up to that.”

These are the final words I wrote to my 81-year-old friend, Bear, in a letter just before Christmas. A few weeks ago, his daughter, Heather, let me know he had passed into glory. His biggest fear was dying alone. Praise God, that didn’t happen. Heather was by his side.

Bear’s health has been failing for a while, and he was no longer able to respond to my texts or email, so Heather suggested sending him letters. Over the last few years, I’ve sent him 22 letters, and Heather faithfully read them to Bear, often bringing a smile to his face, from what she tells me.

Mind if I tell you a little about Bear?

Bear was his self-appointed nickname. His real first name was Stan, but he wasn’t especially fond of it, so he gave himself the nickname shortly after he was married, I think. His wife brought two young children into the marriage and they always called him Bear. And after they grew up and had families, their children called him Grand Bear.

Bear was a quiet, gentle soul who cared deeply for the people in his life. He remembered birthdays and nearly everything you ever told him. He was also one of the best listeners I’ve ever encountered. He not only absorbed every word, but then brought it up in conversation months or years later.

Bear was socially awkward, much like me. That’s probably why we hit it off so well. I heard him give his testimony at church one day many years ago and approached him afterward to see if he wanted to grab dinner somewhere soon because his story gripped me.

In 1981, Bear’s wife informed him that she wanted a separation. He got into his car, drove to a store, purchased a rope, and intended to hang himself. He wasn’t a Christian at the time, and he didn’t think he could handle the emotional pain. God intervened, but his wife divorced him soon after that.

After struggling with emotional health for eighteen years, Bear became a Christian in 1999. He had recently retired, so he spent a lot of time in the Scriptures under the wing of his new pastor. It was time well spent, and Stan developed a good understanding of how to handle his struggles with emotional pain.

“The primary thing that I have been doing when feelings of loneliness and despair come over me is to, first of all, go to the Lord in prayer and thanksgiving, and then stop feeling sorry for myself and get up and start doing something,” Bear told me some twenty years ago. He read his Bible or a Christian book, took walks, and found ways to serve in his church. “My old methods were to just sit around and brood and feel sorry for myself. I have found by concentrating on the Lord and all the blessings that he gives me every day, my sadness is being relieved.”

Bear’s struggle to feel emotionally healthy since his divorce wasn’t easy. But by seeing God involved in his everyday affairs, it made a difference.

Eventually, he moved from Omaha (where I live) to Cincinnati. We stayed in touch via email and the phone. And once a year, he made the trip back to Omaha. Our first stop was always Outback steakhouse. It became an inside joke whenever anybody asked us where we went.

“To the only restaurant in town,” we’d say.

But truth be told, he also had an affinity for a restaurant called Granite City (a Midwestern chain; sadly, the one we used to visit in Omaha is no longer in business). And we usually went there for our second or third meal of each visit. They had a pasta dish with Italian sausage that he loved.

In more recent years, he moved to Virginia to be near Heidi. She cared for him until the very end, and I’m so grateful.

Now begins the grieving process of yet another friend. If you are new to this newsletter, I’ve lost one of my best friends, a mentor and now Bear – all in less than two years.

I wish I had some deep insight after losing so many close friends in such a short amount of time. Instead, I often feel numb. Maybe it’s my way of bracing for more loss. If you stop feeling, maybe the next one won’t hurt as much.

But separation is supposed to hurt.

Jesus wept when he learned his friend Lazarus had died – even though he was about to raise him from the dead. Losing his friend, albeit ever so briefly, still hurt. He felt the separation that death brings.

I, too, have cried numerous tears over the last two years. Then the numbness follows. When I look at the stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance), I probably still need to experience a couple of them.

With that said, when I step back for a moment, I really am grateful. The losses hurt so deeply because I’ve been blessed to have such amazing friendships.

Here are some tidbits you might find interesting this week:

As a thank you for being a reader, here’s a link to download my coffee shop essay book, Single Servings: Contemplations, Confessions, and (Unexpected) Connections from the Coffee Shop, for free. Enjoy!
This short devotion by Our Daily Bread titled Cries of Distress hit home with me this week.
I have a relative in Cabot, Arkansas, so when I saw this story about how a stranger from that town helped a legally blind man get to work every day, I felt like I had to watch it. You should too.
“Wear the old coat and buy the new book.” —Austin Phelps
This is such a great article by Kelly Flanagan about togetherness.

When Lee isn’t writing essays, devotional books, or Christian fiction, he is a freelance editor, as well as a freelance journalist who has written hundreds of articles for various newspapers and magazines. He’s also a fan of NASCAR, baseball, tennis, books, movies and coffee shops.