By Ryan Bailey, Sponsor of LCHS Journalism & Yearbook
On January 4th, the following was presented as a eulogy for Gerald Hildabrand, retired teacher and assistant principal of Lewisburg School, as well as substitute for Logan County Elementary Schools. While being exceptionally dear to me, his influence goes far beyond my family, and even our school system. I am proud that this is the first post on our news site, and a representation of what our focus is: the people of this community, especially those who make Logan County home.
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I have come to realize that the experiences of one’s hometown defines how we see the world and those within it. For those who knew Gerald Hildabrand, we have come to see clearly the power and beauty of friendship, what a life full of wonder looks like, and how a person can dedicate his life to blessing an entire community.
My relation to Gerald has always been mysterious to me. Technically, he was a family friend, the best friend of my father, Joe Bailey. For most of my life Gerald came to our family’s Thanksgivings, Christmases, other holiday meals and cookouts. On my last birthday party, we had a wiffleball game at my sister’s house. Gerald said that he hadn’t swung a bat in years and warned us that he could hardly see and wouldn’t be able to hit a single ball. Correspondingly, he went six-for-six, batting a perfect thousand, putting to shame even the likes of Albert Pujols, Stan Musial, and Lou Brock. Speaking of baseball, he and I, even after my father passed, carried on a tradition of watching the MLB All-Star game every July, accompanied by pizza and Pecan Sandies, which he once discovered I liked and bought them each subsequent year. We missed his past July, but the year before I brought my son, who adopted for those three hours Gerald’s contagious love for the baseball.
Yet the Baileys were not alone in receiving constant benefit from knowing Gerald. He took countless people to hospital appointments, checked in on the sick and shut in, and was always willing for a conversation, even if it was somewhat one sided. Come to think of it, what saddens me the most is that I will never hear Gerald’s voice again: the kindness and warmth that came from it, the laughter in his eyes, the disarming friendliness that always made me feel at home. I’m consoled in that he is at rest, presiding with my father: him talking, Daddy listening, both smiling. But I cannot reconcile that the voice I so gladly listened to all of my life will only be heard as a memory. He was a family friend, but also like an uncle, and like a grandfather, and a friend of my own. Unlike so many, he was never Mr. Hildabrand to me, but Gerald. At
our last All-Star game, he began to cry, telling me that three of his best friends had passed away in the span of a few months. It was the only time he ever said that he was lonesome. Gerald may have seemed to us alone, but he was never lonely. He had a town of people who recalled him and saw him as legendary to Lewisburg, as tall in our eyes as Johnny Cash and John Wayne were to his own. But as loneliness crept in during these past two years, it is now absolved forever. His father, his mother, my father, and countless others he lost are now found, but that does not make losing him any easier. The last time my wife sent food to him, he asked me to come in and stay for a while. I didn’t, and I can’t stop wishing that I had.
Gerald liked everyone, or almost everyone. But if you were one of those rare and few people he did not like, you are probably not aware of it; he was, at worst, polite; at best, the truest person I have ever known. In our hustling and busy lives, even in Lewisburg, we race to our and from places to seclude ourselves in our homes. Gerald spotting you in public meant a minimum of ten minutes that would keep us from whatever allegedly important things we had to do, or thought we had to do. Yet no matter the task before him, Gerald’s top priority was in being with others, smiling tirelessly, even when the Cardinals lost. I have a student who said that he was sorry for us that Gerald passed, and then he, who only had a few interactions with him, spoke with the utmost admiration, almost wonder. He said that Gerald knew his grandmother, and from her Gerald had heard about the boy. When in third grade, Gerald, a substitute, went up to the boy and said, “I heard from your grandmother that you liked Harry Potter.” Gerald handed him one of the Harry Potter books and said he hoped the boy enjoyed it. My student, still mesmerized, said, “What kind person does such a good thing like that?” I then said that when many people pass away, those still grieving often paint a brighter picture of the person’s life than the reality, for we cannot bear to know that a life dear to us—or sometimes not so dear—was a wasted opportunity. But I said, with his affirmation, that with Gerald, the good words we speak are not good enough, and cannot quite capture the person who our hearts try so hard to remember. That smiling face would shatter apart these words I say about him; they feel so inadequate, and cannot adorn the image of a man whose goodness goes without saying.
I recently took my family to the Ranger Grill for breakfast. In a nearby table, Gerald and a few men gathered to eat, fellowship, and pray for their community. I had no idea he did this; for 31 years this somehow was a secret to me. I listened and overheard each of them, kind and warm and caring words spilling forth onto Lewisburg, baptizing the town with their love. We often asked Gerald to say the prayer at gatherings, and I was brought to tears at nearly everyone one. Such profound humility and compassion comprised the words that came forth, staying for a while in the air, leaving us with a thankful silence before we feasted. That morning I heard him pray for dozens, not wasting a word. How many countless hours were our names whispered from his lips that one more moment of peace would reach us, that some sickness would subside at least for a day, that our hearts find their true Home? No matter the chaos or suffering of many of our lives, we were in part under his shelter, Christ-like protected under his wing in ways most of us have or never will be able to see. Yet those prayers will not end, but grow in power and frequency, watching us unwaveringly, smiling ever-brightly, that beautiful voice booming down, every sentence doubtlessly started with, “Get this!” His life was filled with wonder: he relished so many things that most of us overlook, marveling at them like both a poet and a child, finding the great and the good in what our foolish eyes see as mundane. There is something sacred in that, and if anything we can obtain from his life, I hope it is his wonder. And after nearly 70 years, he finally went on a train ride across the US, going to San Antonio and eventually making his way north to Los Angeles to see a Dodgers game, thinking of my father when watching LA play. He made a journey that he never thought he would. On New Year’s Eve the same happened: he made a journey that he could have never imagined. I long for the day to make that same adventure, to find again those I have lost, like Daddy, like Gerald, like countless others that have gone and will before I do. I only hope until then that until I do, that until you do, that we can learn to see the wonder in living that came so naturally to Gerald.
Lewisburg has lost some legends in the past few years, and who will shoulder the weight of their presence? The world seems stranger, more bare, unsure of itself. I have never known life without Gerald, and life won’t be the same now that he’s no longer here. Who is going to tell those old stories, and if someone still does, will we be willing to listen? All our films and television suddenly seem so empty and repulsive. How wonderful it would be to ask those we have lost to tell us another story of the way life was, so that we can be bearers of the goodness of the past instead of swept away in the whims of the present. One could never tire of hearing one of those aged stories, passed down like heirlooms , especially if the story happened to be about Mr. Birdwhistell.
My last interaction with Gerald is too good for me, far greater than I deserve. As he was leaving after our family’s Christmas, he hugged me, tighter than usual; and as his head lowered, there he kissed my shoulder, quickly, as though he did not want to make me uncomfortable. Then the last words I ever heard him say: “I sure do love you, Ryan.”
Today, my words represent a great cloud of witnesses, a number of people touched by his life, so saddened by the weight of his passing that there is only one thing left to say: I sure do love you, Gerald. And although I wish I could hear you tell me just one more story, please rest peacefully in knowing that the story of your life will be told for some time, and then all things will be made New. Then we can share stories without end, in the Story that will never end, and we will hear all the things that you have seen and done. And, Gerald, get this: Then, we will have all the time in the world to listen, and just like our time here, we will be better for it.
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Image Descriptions:
First: Profile of Gerald used by Price Funeral Home.
Second: Gerald is on deck after my son's at bat in our family's wiffleball game in July of 2017.
Third: Gerald and I enjoy Thanksgiving at my home in 2016.
Fourth: My father, Joe Bailey, and Gerald pose for a picture at my son's birthday party in 2013.
Fifth: Gerald leads Billy Joel Royal's band when they came to Lewisburg in 1995.
Sixth: My son, Jack, helps Gerald blow out his candles for his 70th birthday in 2016.
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