The Green Notebook

He didn’t seem to be the type of person to do this. But then, life is full of surprises.

It was a green notebook that contained things he wrote about. A treasure trove that revealed a lot about what Mike stood for and cared about. It was a guidebook for planning his funeral and a lasting legacy of a wonderful man.

When Mike retired from working full time at the Bank he wasn’t quite ready to stop working. Without an office, we set up a place for him at one end of our dining room. Sounded good to me. I was done with entertaining on a large scale. The family fit nicely at our kitchen table.

So he began spending the better part of everyday at his “desk,” aka the dining room table. Perhaps it was during those hours, or maybe even when he still had his office at the Bank, that he wrote in a rather used green spiral notebook. I knew about the notebook but considered it his own private stash so I didn’t ask to read it and he didn’t offer. But it wasn’t too long before he died that Mike started sharing the contents with us in a rather methodical way. He showed it to each of us –me and our two daughters, individually — and had us read parts of it out loud. Through choked up tears, we’d stumble through it.

Some entries are far too personal to put on this post, but much of it is a clear depiction of this kind and gentle soul who, as it turns out, was far more introspective and observant than most of us realized.

I smile when I read about the “little things” that were important to him:

• “Always park in front.”
• ” I don’t like to be in the limelight.”
• “I don’t like to be late.”

On a more poignant note, he reminisced about some of his regrets: From high school years:

• “Not going to the prom”
• “Not playing football”

His relationship with his parents (who divorced):

• “Not standing up TO my father”
• Not standing UP for my mother”
• “Fighting with Paul” (his brother)

His mother, who also died of cancer, was a quiet, gentle woman just like her son. I know for a fact that she loved her oldest son deeply and was proud of him. Still the green notebook revealed what Mike felt were his shortcomings in their relationship: “I told Mom I loved her a couple of weeks before she died. She said, ‘I love you, too, honey,’. I have felt good about that moment. I was not a very loving son.” We have three grandchildren who were Mike’s pride and joy. They brought so much happiness to his life and, as the green notebook showed, he treasured every moment. “My best day of fishing ever was the day River caught the 3# catfish with a 4# hook and a worm. He was so proud, happy and excited. It almost made me cry.”

The two granddaughters had special moments with their “Papa,” a lot of them while driving in the pickup. “I try to keep in touch with Clara and Norah in any way I can. Driving seems to be a way. Both are getting better and I need to be there.”

He also recorded a comment made by one of the granddaughters: “What happens in the pickup, stays in the pickup.”

Those times in the pickup were so special to him, as noted in a passage he had dated November 9, 2022: “Fun giving driving tests to the girls. Best if it’s one-on-one. But I’ll take it any way I can, just so I can spend time with them in the time I have left. Hope they remember me when I am not here.”

Mike wasn’t one to write long passages, but the snippets he wrote in the book said so much about how he viewed life.

“God, let me do some good.”

“I can’t understand why God has been so good to me.”

“Love — it’s what’s in the room at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen.”

Some things he wrote were someone else’s words, but they still hit the mark with him:

“It’s not what you gather but what you scatter that tells what kind of a life you have lived.”

“Make memories you can live with.”

One quote he attributed to Hattie McDaniel who played the maid in Gone With the Wind: “I did by best; God did the rest.”

The day I read it with him was when I really came face to face with the finality of the situation. I’m pretty sure I had been in my own form of denial. But Mike persevered. After I’d had a good long cry, he suggested we write down the pall bearers he wanted at his funeral.

As it turned out, the green notebook provided a valuable manual, if you will, for planning his funeral. In the book, he’d carefully listed all the different boards and community responsibilities he’d had over the years. What a help that was in writing his obituary. Then there was the song: “Keep Me In Your Heart” by Warren Zevon. It was clear he really liked that song. He’d written all the lyrics in the notebook, and last Christmas gave me a lap robe with a passage from the song.

KEEP ME IN YOUR HEART

Shadows are falling, and I’m running out of breath.
Keep me in your heart for a while.
When you get up in the morning and you see that crazy sun,
Keep me in your heart for a while.
There’s a train leaving nightly called ‘when all is said and done,
Keep me in your heart for a while.
Sometimes when you’re doing simple things around the house,
Maybe you’ll think of me and smile.
You know I’m tied to you like buttons on your blouse.
Keep me in your heart for a while.
Hold me in your thoughts. Take me to your dreams
Touch me as I fall into view.
When the winter comes, keep the fires lit.
And I will be right next to you.
Engine driver’s headed north to “our cabin”  (those two words, Mike's rendition)
Keep me in your heart for a while.

We honored his wishes, and his grandson played and sang that song at his visitation the night before the funeral. The last thing he wrote was just a few days before he died. In handwriting unusually scratchy and shaky, he wrote: “Not much for 77 years but maybe others will start sooner than I did. But I still need to keep writing things.”

I read that three days after he’d passed. Maybe he thought he didn’t write enough, but the words he did write are like that warm blanket he gave me last Christmas — they wrap around my heart and I feel him close to me.

As was typical of Mike, he often believed he fell short in things he did. Not here, dear husband. Your green notebook is your legacy letter. Your memory will live on in those few pages, and it will brings us smiles and joy for years to come.

Guess I better get started on my own.