A good friend of mine died today.
Born and raised in Mooresville, IN, I lived there until I was almost 47 years old. Growing up and living in a town like that, you get to know everyone and everyone knows you. And in those years, unfortunately, you have to stand by and watch as good friends sometimes pass on, often too early.
I moved to South Carolina six years ago. Ironically, in fact, today is our 6-year anniversary here in the Lowcountry. When Ginger and I moved here, we didn't know a soul. We literally moved from a place where we knew everyone to a place where we knew nobody. Of course, it took us a while to begin to integrate into the various aspects of our society here, and making new friends with people who didn't grow up around us was a new challenge. After six years, we've made some, but we haven't quite matched the familiarity of 40+ years in the same place.
The primary place we've made friends is in our church family here. And one of the first people to befriend me was Bob Keane. Bob is an interesting guy. You know the type: a teddy bear under a gruff exterior. There's a million of him, and somehow he's still one of a kind.
Bob is older than me, although I never bothered to ask how old. Old enough to be my senior, maybe even old enough to be my dad. I certainly respected him as a senior, but he never treated me as anything but an equal. Bob has a prosthetic leg. And he didn't bother to try to hide it. (We share an affinity for short pants -- and for a particular style of dress, which I will note shortly.) Took me awhile to get around to asking him what happened to his leg. One just doesn't jump to that early on, ya know. Like, "hey dude, what happened to your leg?" Even I wasn't that brave. But he had no trouble telling me when I asked.
As the past few years went by, it turns out Bob and I shared an affinity for many things. A fondness for St. Augustine, and a similar political worldview, just to name a couple. And, as luck would have it, we both liked clothing that prefers comfort over style. We both like to dress with an eye towards comfort over conventionality.
But before I tell you the rest of the story, I have to tell you this one.
Several years ago, I played drums in a band in Indiana. It was a Christian band, and after many years as a front man and guitarist in other bands, it was my first full time gig in a band as a drummer. Our guitar player had written the lyrics to a song titled Treasure Chest. The core of the song revolves around the death of his father, and how he had left behind a closet full of clothes that his son will now wear. As the years go by, the threads begin to bare, but the son still hopes to preserve his father's shirts. And yet as much as he treasures those shirts, they pale in comparison to the treasure we have in Heaven with Jesus.
Our band leader had fashioned those lyrics into a song, and the music had already been recorded for an album before I joined the band, but the lead vocal had not yet been completed. For some reason, the song resonated with me, having lost my father several years earlier, and the moment I heard the demo, I asked our band leader if I could take a crack at recording the vocal. Remember... to these guys, I was just the drummer. They conceded, I laid down the track, and they loved it. It made the album, and it is the only track on the project featuring me on the lead vocal. I've copied the lyrics for your review at the end below, and if you'd like to hear the track, you can do so through this link.
Me singing, about wearing another's guy's shirts.
Flash forward to just a few years ago. I had began to play music here with our worship band at church, and my wife and I were still getting our feet wet in our new hometown. One Sunday after service, Bob approached me and said, "I have something for you if you want them." I did not know Bob well at all, and up to that point, our only conversations had been an introduction and passing pleasantries.
I said, "OK, whatcha got?"
"I see you like to wear the same kind of shirts I do, and I have a couple that don't fit me anymore. I'm gonna give them to you. If you like them, you can keep them. If you don't, you can get rid of them."
Seeing as how it was clear he was giving me the shirts whether I really wanted them or not, "OK," I said, and the next week, he showed up with two shirts and handed them to me. "I figure you can use these," Bob said, "and if you can't, then just throw them away."
I did not throw them away. Tommy Bahamas... not cheap shirts. I like Tommy Bahamas.
And with that, Bob and I struck up a friendship. We would brag about he and I prancing around in shorts in below-60 degree weather when everyone else was bundled up like Winter. Kindred spirits, us. As the next couple years went by, Bob and his friends invited and accepted me into their circle of friends: a group of older gentlemen in the church who are now retired and get together regularly to fellowship. Tuesday morning breakfasts with just the guys, and Friday night meals out with the families. And Bob was a primary organizer of that group. They invited me with open arms, even though at 53 years old, I am considerably younger than most of them -- just a "pup," as many have referred to me -- and I am not retired. Yet they have included me as one of their own. It is both an honor to me and a privilege.
Bob could be gruff, and even a little crass... but he was very complimentary of me, telling me often how much he enjoyed it when I led worship, and how he always felt a genuineness with me, and how much he always got out of the services I led. Rarely do I seek validation or acceptance, but we'd all be lying if we said we aren't comforted by it when it is received. Bob's compliments meant more to me than most would know.
Bob was not my first friend in the Lowcountry. But he is the first friend here I've lost, and I will miss him. One of the primary reasons Ginger and I made the life-changing choice to move close to an ocean is because we watched some very dear friends pass away far too young -- including the leader of that band for which I drummed in Indiana, a dear musical friend of mine who passed away at the age of 47 just a few years after I recorded Treasure Chest. Ginger and I recognize that life is short... and we want to live out some of our dreams while we still can.
Bob didn't die young. But then, doesn't everyone die before we think they should? But Bob left me a gift -- a "treasure," if you will. He left me his shirts.
I wear them often. If you know me here in South Carolina, especially if you attend church with me, you've seen me in them, although you likely didn't know it was a shirt Bob gave me. I'll have one on this Sunday, and I will continue to wear them often, until the threads begin to bare. Then I will store them up as memories from a friend.
In closing, here's the kicker. The song, Treasure Chest, is about my friend's father. My own father passed away in 1993, long before I knew any of the guys in that band, and 30 years before I met Bob Keane. But I do not have a single possession of my father's. Aside from a few pictures, I have nothing tangible or real that connects me to him. It's just the way it played out, but I am OK with it.
But I will cherish even more the song I recorded, and the shirts Bob gave me, because they will remind me not only of my friends and my own Dad, but that the treasures Jesus has stored up for me in Heaven are greater than any other memento I could have.
Maybe that's the real reason Bob gave me his shirts.
Treasure Chest: Words by Darren Duerlinger. Music and Arrangement by Bobby Raikes.
I know I don’t look wealthy
Though I sometimes play the part
Even there I wouldn’t stand a chance
Without my dad’s old shirts
Left hanging in the closet, how could he have known
Going to work that day, I’d be the next one
To wear his clothes
It’s been several years now, and the threads are growing bare
But I now they have grown, beyond repair
I watch them hanging in my closet
I look at his old pictures, and wish that he were there
And turn back time, yes turn back time
Chorus
And yet I have a treasure
It’s true I often neglect
Full of riches
It’s true I often forget
The mystery of Jesus
In whom all wisdom and knowledge
It’s hard to understand
How big he must be
But, yet I have a treasure
Like precious remnants left over from the storm
I guard little things left out before his leaving
A book, a clock, a camera, anything to help
Anything to help us through our grieving
We all want to keep these faded jewels
In a little box, like a treasure chest
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