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I’ve Lost a Great Mentor, and This is My Tribute to Him

Earlier this week, I got the news that Jeff Bredenberg—a colleague, mentor, and man I’ve greatly admired—had died of a brain tumor.

Immediately I thought back years—nearly 20 years in fact—to the day that Jeff interviewed me for my first post-collegiate job. I interviewed with him in 1992, during the first George Bush recession. Before interviewing with Jeff, I’d applied to nearly a hundred newspapers. I’d been rejected from all, including a newspaper in the middle of nowhere in Texas. That paper was situated in a town that had no running water—in a town that was plagued by a cholera epidemic.

With so many qualified newspaper reporters out of work, getting a job seemed impossible. So I’d talked with a couple journalism majors about going to Prague post graduation, where we dreamed of living in youth hostels and surviving off the income we received from working at the one English language newspaper there.

Out loud, I said it was my dream. Out loud, I even said that I didn’t want to find a job, because Prague seemed so much cooler.

In reality, the idea of traveling to Prague scared the crap out of me. Where would I live? How would I earn enough money? What if I didn’t know what anyone was saying?

Truth be told, I’ve never been one of those interesting US citizens who has the courage to live in other countries like Prague. No, I’m a regular everyday person who likes to live in places she knows—where everyone speaks her language and where the comfort of a good hamburger is never far away.

So when the News-Journal, a paper where I’d completed two internships, advertised an entry-level position for a community reporter, I applied.

You must understand that, at age 21, I was quite the nervous little bundle of energy. With my hands shaking, my voice an octave or two higher than normal, and sweat on my brow, I showed Jeff one clip after another. I showed him clips from my internships at the News-Journal, from my internship at the Pueblo Chieftain, from my days at the student run college newspaper, and even from my time at my high school newspaper.

It was a rather large pile of newspaper.

In my nervousness, I knocked that great big pile on the floor.

Jeff helped me to pick it all up. And then with the kindest expression on his face and with a twinkle in his eyes, he asked, “Are you a little nervous?”

There was no sarcasm there. His tone of voice was one of compassion.

With a head tick and full body tremor, I answered, “Just a little.”

He said, “There’s nothing to be nervous about. You have the job. You had it before you sat down. Congratulations. You’re hired.”

He shook my sweaty hand.

For the next few years, I worked with Jeff at the News-Journal. Then I followed him to Rodale, Inc., where we both worked in the books division. He recruited me to work at Intelihealth.com after that, and I almost followed him there, too. But, at that time, I had a seriously cush position as an editor at Runner’s World magazine. They paid me to run a marathon in Hawaii. Who would give that up?

Jeff and I both went freelance around the same time, and, as freelance writers, we worked on some projects together, too.

At his memorial service, I only knew two other people, but I soon realized that we all had something in common. We all had known the same Jeff. I knew Jeff as the quirky guy who described the experience of appearing on the Rachel Ray show as, “a hoot.” The scouts he led described him as a quirky guy who woke them each morning of a camping trip by singing, “Zippity Doo Dah.”

I knew Jeff as the guy who always seemed happy, no matter what was going on in his life. His closest friends and neighbors said he even faced death with a smile. Indeed, Jeff, an author of a popular how-to book series called “How to Cheat at____” started writing his final book after his diagnosis. It was to be called, “How To Cheat at Death.” He never finished it, but he read a portion of it during a service he designed for himself about a month before he died.

As I listened to so many people describe him, I wondered whether I had ever thanked him for hiring me for that first job and for being so kind during the interview. I could not remember.

I thought about other people in my life—people who are still of this world. Had I thanked them? Had I told them how much I’ve admired them? Had I told them how great they are?

Or had I kept these feelings to myself, under the flawed assumption that they would still be around another year or 5 or 20?

Do I take people for granted? Does my inherent shyness prevent me from being effusive and telling people how wonderful they are? Are there some people, like Jeff, whom I see rarely and, by default, I rarely remember to thank, until it’s too late?

Why does it take the death of someone I love for me to wake up and realize that life is fleeting?

I don’t know the answers to those questions. What I do know is this. I am going to try my hardest to learn two lessons from Jeff’s life.

1. I will strive to be more like Jeff. Like Jeff, I want to honor the goodness in others rather than fixate on their faults. Like Jeff, I want to help and mentor others whenever possible. Like Jeff, I want to take on life with bemusement. Like Jeff I will cheat death by facing this terminal illness called life with my all.

2. I will live each day as if it’s everyone’s last. I will not wait until it’s too late to tell others how much they mean to me. I want “I love you” and “thank you” and “you are awesome” to be phrases that I use several times a day. I will use these phrases with my husband, my daughter, my parents, my siblings, my friends, my colleagues, and the random people I encounter wherever I go.

What have you learned from the passing of others? How have you honored the memory of those who you’ve loved? What are some things that we can all do to remind ourselves of fleeting nature of life? How can we motivate ourselves to continually live each day as if it were the last day we all had to live? Let me know your thoughts.

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