MEMORIAL

"Where do I even begin? Any attempt to capture the essence of my dad will fall painfully short. No eulogy could ever do justice to the profound effect that Bob Reid had on hundreds of hearts across this world. Yet we are here to honor a great man and to do so, I realize that I must make use of the same craft that he took up so wholeheartedly, waking up every morning at 5 am to write for three hours, which he did religiously for decades, as if it were not just a passion but a necessity.

 

And as I sit here staring at this blank page, wondering how I will possibly begin to convey his unfathomable contribution to this planet, I feel him in my blinking cursor, remembering just how much care he put into every word. When he was turning sentences around, my dad was struggling with more than just syntax. He was struggling with big questions about the nature of existence, our place in the cosmos, what a mess we’ve made of things, and how we might start to make it right.

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Now imagine having that guy for a father. To say I struck the reincarnation lottery would be an understatement. Jesus said, “By their fruits ye shall know them.” Well, my dad left more exquisite fruits than any of us know what to do with. Every time I open one of his books, I’m jolted by a great insight that reminds me of something he said at the dinner table when I was thirteen years old. Or look, here in one of his original songs, a Latin phrase with multiple layers of meaning that I can tug on for an eternity.

 

Perhaps most potent of all is his Bristlecone Mass, a 90-minute, 24-song composition combining Native American prophecy and the contemporary Christian sacrament. At its center stood Black Elk’s vision of 'a Holy Tree that will take root and flower in our midst and shelter every living thing in happiness beneath its murmuring leaves.'

 

This image stood near the center of my dad’s spiritual life, and I know this because even in his advanced dementia, he would bring it up every time I encountered him, often with a twinkle in his eye. I think a mythopoetic image like this one can say more about a person than any number of words. We get a glimpse into my dad’s soul when we reflect on the Holy Tree that I would propose was the culmination of his creative career. And perhaps, if I can stretch the metaphor, we see roots of this tree extending down into earlier chapters of his life.

 

Born in Meadville, Pennsylvania in 1943, Bob Reid was the son of Bill Reid and Florence Reid, and younger brother of Bill Jr. He spoke about his family with deep gratitude, often with a tear in his eye. My dad’s reverence for the natural world began early — in his words, 'lakes and autumn evenings, wildlife, meandering streams; most of all the night sky.' Drawn by a profound sense of enchantment, he studied astronomy at Harvard, yet what he found beneath the telescope reduced the mystery to mere calculation. This tension between reason and transcendence inspired much of his life’s work. After graduating with a degree in mathematics, he moved to New York City and studied composition at the Manhattan School of Music before teaching math at a prestigious private school called Collegiate. He began initiating his students into the wonders of deep wilderness, taking them on backpacking trips far away from the city. We still hear from former students of his who describe how life-changing this was.

 

Having discovered climbing and fallen in love with the majestic mountains of the American West, he emigrated to California with his first wife Barbara and began focusing more intently on becoming a writer, piano player, composer, and wilderness activist. He was honored as “Conservationist of the Year” by the Sierra Club’s largest chapter for his work with Project Wilderness, where he initially met my mom. Devastated after his first marriage fell apart and Barbara had left him, he was at a bar when his friend Bill asked him, 'Why don’t you call Carol Dimmick?' And he responded, 'Are you crazy? She’d never go out with me.' The next morning, he received the most serendipitous phone call of his life, a voice saying, 'Hi, Bob, this is Carol Dimmick. Do you remember me? I have a journalism class where I have to interview a writer. Do you think I could interview you?' And the rest is history.

 

After dating for less than a year, my parents got married and eventually moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico where they had a little blonde boy who is standing in front of you today. Thus began the most fruitful and perhaps the most challenging period of my dad’s life, when he began parenting, writing books while working as a freelance math textbook editor, and my mom became severely ill with myalgic encephalomyelitis and fibromyalgia. Lesser men would have bailed, but my dad fulfilled his wedding vows, pouring everything he could into her healing—financially, energetically, and emotionally.

 

We moved to Carson City so my mom could be closer to the treatment she needed. Between his music and his writing and his expeditions to the Arctic to follow the Porcupine caribou migration, my dad found the spiritual renewal that sustained him through decades of his wife’s illness. As he wrote in Arctic Circle, 'Ten thousand times the herd had returned to the calving grounds, to be born and reborn and reborn. In that unbreakable cycle of renewal, I found hope for Carol’s rebirth, and for my own.' Slowly, miraculously, my mom experienced substantial improvements in her condition.

 

Then shortly after Arctic Circle was published in 2010, my dad faced yet another grueling ordeal, this time involving me. I experienced a horrific mental breakdown and was diagnosed with 'paranoid schizophrenia.' Like the many nights my dad lay next to me when I had the stomach flu as a kid, he once again lay next to me and comforted me as best he could through those initial nights when my mind was coming undone. Neither he nor my mom had any idea what to do, but they sat with me through hundreds of Open Dialogue-style conversations and watched as slowly over the years, my mind began to return. I believe my mental health recovery was one of the great joys of my dad’s life. He was very vocal about his admiration for me in that sense.

 

Then, in an interesting twist of fate, it became time for me to return the favor when my dad experienced his own brain health challenges at the end of his life. There was something very full-circle about my mom and I being able to hold space for him as he experienced a disintegration of his own mental faculties from the dementia that ultimately claimed his life. We watched with awe as he faced his death with such poise, giving up the writing and the nature immersion that had acted as medicine for him through the years. Letting go of his intellect and his physicality was the ultimate act of surrender.

 

And now we honor him in spirit form, a great man, a great writer, a great musician, a great teacher, a great friend, a great husband, and for me, a great father. Bob Reid had foibles like anyone else. I remember when he was short-tempered or short-sighted. I remember times when he lost his composure or missed the forest for the trees. But any shortcomings were far outweighed by the size of the man’s heart, the way he made people laugh and cry, the way he trusted life, the way he gave and gave and gave and somehow, when it seemed there was nothing left to give, he gave some more.

 

So, when I consider Black Elk’s vision of the Holy Tree that will take root and flower in our midst and shelter every living thing in happiness beneath its murmuring leaves, I understand that my dad spent his life planting the seed of that tree. And I pray that generations from now, his descendants will live under its shade.

 

Dad, Bob, we raise our Big Love up to you, thanking you for your exquisite fruits—your books, your poems, your essays, your music, your spiritual legacy, the lives you touched, the people you inspired, the wilderness you fought for. I love you as much as a son could ever love his dad, and I know I will see you again. May your soul continue to be deeply blessed. Go with God."