Stand by Me

Maybe it’s just me, but the older I get the more things like joy, wonder, and sadness all provide a similar physiological result. Some Kleenex, please.

And these days, I think I can shed a tear on demand. All I need to do is use my mind’s eye and look back and find the joy of Dad hitting me grounders in the back yard, or the wonder of it all seeing my team, all smiles, providing patients and one another the kind of service that still makes me feel like a proud Papa.

But today, there is no joy in Mudville nor the City of Roses coming from Magnolia Avenue and my modest hacienda. It’s been a week, and I’m still grieving.

I’m two months younger than Rob Reiner was. And it’s the past tense that’s getting me down. We grew up together but never met.

The 70s was a challenging decade for my family of four and me. By the time we reached 1976, we were a family of two. Watching Meathead and All in the Family provided Mom and I with some needed recovery time together and the chance to share a smile.

Mom loved the movies; I’d screen ‘em on Friday and we’d see them together on Sunday; our first Rob Reiner film hit the big screen in 1986.

I’ve seen Stand by Me at least 25 times. When we were both twelve years old and 3,000 miles apart, Rob and I and film characters Gordie, Chris, Teddy, and Vern were all part of our typical baseball cap wearing, bicycle riding, “Have Gun, Will Travel” watching, Annette Funicello fan club of 1959. We all knew exactly who we were; our immediate future was Junior High.

Gordie LaChance and I had some stuff in common. We both idolized our older brothers who were supportive enough to become our future Life Coaches/Marketing Directors. One minute they were loving and living life, and a phone call later they were gone.

Rob and I were 39 years old when Stand by Me’s Gordie and I shared a loss that changed our lives forever. And there was more. As the film was released, I heard Rob’s dear friend Billy Crystal speak to a scene that was deeply personal and challenging for the director.

Stand by Me tells the story of four 12-year-old kids in search of a boy’s dead body over an adventurous Labor Day weekend. Surviving trains, a killer dog named Chopper, leaches, nocturnal wolf calls, and a competing teenage gang of local ducktailed thugs, the good guys find the body. The discovery that had earlier been anticipated as a cause for glory and celebrity, quickly meets with a sobering reality. Gordie is distraught and overcome with tears: he’s consoled by best friend Chris. In his mind, Gordie’s the invisible boy; his parents have shut down, his father hates him and wishes he had died instead of his brother.

Rob Reiner loved and idolized his famous father Carl so much that when he was a little kid, he wanted to change his name…to Carl. But as time passed, young Rob also felt invisible to his father and not so sure his dad Carl had much love to send his way.

In 1986, watching Stand by Me for the first time on the big screen, I openly grieved for my brother and dad for the first time, sitting alone in a movie theater on a Friday afternoon. And watching the film that takes me back to 1959, when our loving little family of four was together and at the top of our game, always reminds me how lucky I’ve been. I’m also reminded how easily I’ve covered loneliness from loss with my projected independence.

I’ve seen every Rob Reiner film and loved them all, I’ve also seen humanity, drama, humor, love, compassion, and a sense of decency; all the stuff that reminds me of what I still miss and what I had 24/7 in 1959. To paraphrase adult Gordie LaChance as he puts the Labor Day adventure from keyboard to screen, I’ve never had friends and family like I had when I was twelve. And every time I see Stand by Me, I’ll be grieving a little more for decency, humanity, and honesty lost, but remaining appreciative, especially now, of the examples that remain on the screen and in my mind.

Thank you Rob and Michelle Reiner, we grew up together, and never met, but you’ll be missed forever.