The Bear

“Sometimes, you eat the bear, and sometimes the bear eats you.”

  Soon as Unc says it, I get it. Still, I want to hear it again. His voice is exactly as you’d expect from a guy who was born to Carnies near Frankford and Somerset, raised in Grays Ferry. His parents ran game booths at the types of carnivals hosted by your local Greek orthodox church or Masjid when summer nights are hot and long. His legs are slightly swollen and covered with marks that hint he has suffered psoriasis, or bed bugs or both, at some point in his life. He’s done every drug known to the poor man, and liquor to boot based on his belly. He’s the type of guy who misses a good tailgate; I can hear him saying, “I don’t go to sober ones cause they ain’t no fuckin’ fun.” Unc is tough, a bear himself, all fur and teeth and bad reputation with zero to desire to bite and also no need to be fucked with. He reminds me of the cartoon father of the little mouse named Fivel, or maybe Badger from Wind in the Willows, when he is asleep. I know this ‘cause he sleeps in every morning group he attends, and he only attends morning groups. I call him Uncle or Unc, for short, for all these reasons. I’m a Philly girl, and he reminds me of so many of my own uncles: inappropriately hilarious, exhausted down to the bones, but willing to stand the midnight watch for the ones he loves. What is easy to forget about Unc, when his head is nodding, is how much pain he is in, excruciating. He has a “1 bummed cigarette”  rule, and rarely talks unless he has to, but when he does speak by choice, it almost invariably has a good bit of practical wisdom woven in. Like Goldilocks from the vine age of old, I feel far more “can I pet that dawwwwg” than Leo in the Revenant, when it comes down to it. Real just knows real, and Unc’s got a heart of gold. 

Real bears simply prefer it if humans leave them be, but metaphorically life can make what Leo faced, deep in the woods that won him the Oscar, look like an aged and docile golden retriever. I mean, you can be walking alone assuming you are going to miss one day of work for a minor procedure and end up going back three months later in a wheelchair. You can be hysterically crying on the top of a hill, trying to convince yourself to end a relationship, then walk down the slope on the other side engaged. Sometimes you make bad choices and sometimes life makes bad choices for you. You can control a few things but those things are fewer than you’d like and live between your ears. 

Sometimes, you eat the bear and, sometimes, the bear eats you.

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Most things are best defeated by matters of perspective. Unc, by the picture I’ve painted of him, isn't someone who appears to be particularly worried about his sobriety. Until you stop to listen and add up the silent figures; his continued mention of his wife, of wanting to be better, his presence despite the pain. I’ve seen lazier three-legged dogs with fleas. He’s not in substance recovery after all, but mental health. Do you know how much strength and devotion it takes for a man like this to check himself into a mental rehabilitation? How much goes against every fiber of his being to be the one who asks for help? 

I’m pretty sure that, once, I heard him say the words, “Listen, I aint’ a pretty mutherfucker.” Here’s the truth of it: none of us are. I’m certainly not. Jesus said, “Let him who is without sin,” and cleared a stone holding mob; none of us can claim, with any honesty, that we don't have a little blood and shit on our hands. Looking pretty doesn’t keep us off the sides of bridges, or get us out of the bed after three days without a shower, or keep us out of a too-early-emptied bottle of pills. Charm and beauty are overrated and graying beards framing toothless grins are often undervalued. When you’ve fought a few bears and won, it's natural and good to have scars to prove it. This man, with his scars, is like many men I’ve known and loved. Years of hard earned calloused exterior with a soft underside; men of a certain age who've seen too much and don’t have time, energy, or words to convince young minds of what they know. Our elders' silence hurts us, so do their words at times. If we can trim the meat off the sharp bones and hard to swallow gristle, what’s left is wisdom and the kind of common sense, no nonsense practicality that is in short supply in this behind-screens age. Men like Unc lived their bumps and bruises when access to virtual solidarity and solace were not in supply. Now you can throw a filter of sadness over your secret contentment and put a spitshine on your moments of failure. We have come far but we’re often guilty of throwing the baby out with the bath water, and much of what we could take with us may soon be lost. 

Still, age ain’t nothing but a number and everyone in this group of misfits has a story to tell. Everyone of us has crawled out of the belly of a dead thing that kept us warm in the dark night of our soul. We’ve survived, are surviving, much’. This January I celebrate my 36th birthday, and I’ve only lived a few years compared to the amount of life I feel like I have experienced. My grandad will be 90 this year, and he said all while I grew up, something which didn’t click till this year, “the days are long, Sug, but the years are short.” Looking at my nephews and nieces as they grow so quickly before my eyes, I fully understand. There’s so much life for them to live, so much joy and pain to experience, so many lessons to learn. If I could give them the lesson but keep the pain, god knows I would. But that’s not how being human works.

It's a complex business being human. We all have our stories of gory triumph and bloody defeat. Sometimes, we get little gifts sprinkled in, like funny expressions that sum that all up. Uncle ’s last day is today, and at least by my estimate, he’s the biggest bear  any human can face; the one that lives inside us and between the ears. I wish him well in this next leg of the race, and I hope he knows that he isn’t alone, this lone wolf that’s wrestling bears in the woods. Mixed metaphors aside, he doesn’t have to do it alone. None of us do.