Rodney and Friends

The Misadventures of Rodney the Bear is out and available now. It is the work I am most proud of because it is so personal. I’ve been asked if Rodney is a real bear. Definitely, as are all the other characters in the book. I’ve also been asked if I ever write fiction. Rodney—fiction? No way! Let me explain.

I never set out to write a children’s book, and, in fact, the book will appeal to older children almost more than younger ones. The book is inspired by my little sister, Kim, a character in the book. Eight years my junior, she was special … and different. She was only with our family for the first four years of her life, and I became her caregiver to a large extent. She was diagnosed with mental retardation at age two and became increasingly difficult for my parents to handle. When I arrived home from school, I often took over for the nurse who watched her throughout the day. Before dinner, we went for walks and played in our side yard, but after dinner, she and I went up to my bedroom, our “enchanted room.”

Kim was unable to ever talk, but we created a communication system based on my bear collection. In our world, the bears came alive and spoke to us. The word “bear” was actually the only word that Kim said in her short life. I’m not sure which of the two of us enjoyed this bear world more. Time passed quickly each evening before I would take her down to her room and put her to bed. My parents never completely understood why I regarded the bears as far more than simple stuffed animals.

When Kim was four, my parents made what likely was the most difficult decision of their lives. They decided to put Kim in a private home where she could receive the care she needed. This was a time when there were almost no resources available for a parent with such a child. To protect me, they left me out of the discussions. I returned one day from school to find that Kim was gone. I was devastated and angry. To be honest, I never got over it. I soon went from being a top student to a struggling and poorly motivated one, but I never made the connection to the loss of Kim.

It would be several months before our family went to visit Kim. Tragically, she did not remember any of us. It had never occurred to me to take a bear with us. The only hint of any recognition of our family was that she remembered my father often carried M&Ms in his shirt pocket. I returned home feeling as if my whole world had collapsed. When I went up to my room that evening, I realized that the bears no longer spoke to me. I became a twelve-year-old drifter.

Kim caught pneumonia and died in a public institution at the age of seventeen, probably neglected at the end. My mother insisted I look at her body in the funeral home, something I dreaded doing. I wanted to remember that spunky little girl. I should have put a bear in the coffin, but I didn’t know the person I gazed at that evening.

It wasn’t until many years later that I realized a part of me died that evening, over sixty years ago, when I came home to an empty house. I became a different person. When I met Jackie, the person who would become my wife and life partner, she did not realize she was dealing with damaged goods. It was as if a part of me stopped growing at age twelve. That all began to change when something possessed me to give Jackie a bear when she was in the hospital after experiencing a miscarriage. In the ensuing days, Eddie, a key character in the book, revealed himself to me and became a member of our family. Any other person would have thrown in the towel on me, but Jackie accepted our new family member lovingly.

The bear world thrived when my children were young and again when my grandchildren were visiting. I even took bears into my middle school classroom, something I never figured would work. Elmo the panda became well known, even making it into the school yearbook. At home, Rodney had become a key figure at this point and was begging to be the subject of a book. After a few shorter works, it was time to bring the whole bear world to life in print. And most importantly, I needed to keep Kim alive.

Writing the book was no more difficult than writing personal memoirs. The bears were real individuals. Adding Kim to the stories was necessary. I only knew her for four years of my life, but she has always been with me. But rather than mourning her loss, I keep her alive in stories and print. She is embodied in the many bears that adorn our house. We all eventually suffer the loss of a loved one, and the finality of never seeing them again is devastating. Many people find comfort in religion and the possibility of seeing their loved ones again in an afterlife. To me, it is essential to keep them alive in us in this life with memories and stories. Without doing that, they begin to fade as our memories become more distant. I am blessed, for Kim is as alive in me now as she was years ago. Our bear world lives on. Some might say I’m missing a few screws, but the truth is, I’m the lucky one.