Calling Robert and Heather "friends" sounds so lame: in Hollywood, someone once said, a friend is "someone you've heard of."
These two have been so much more than that.
At the lowest time in my life, they took me into their home in Utah. They gave me a space to live in, time to heal, honorable work to do (in tutoring their son Ryan), and their time, friendship, and love.
They took me on family outings, to church, to their house in Canada. I probably spent more time with Heather--sightseeing, discussing books and movies, helping her with the kids, just hanging around the house. It was her idea to reach out to me, and she is every bit the friend he was, but today I'd like to talk about Bob.
Robert Urich was a doer. He had a go-getter attitude that was summed up in his delightful misquote of an Indian saying. They said, "You must seek enlightenment like a man whose hair is on fire seeks a pond." Robert's version was more appropriate for his way of living: "Face every day like your hair was on fire."
Many was the (late) morning when Bob would bang on my bedroom door and call in: "Baquet, are you alive in there? Let's go do something."
Despite his great success, Robert was still a blue-collar boy, as am I. He was immune to the trappings of fame and stardom, and despite the difference in our worldly status, when we were together we were just "Bob and Jim." He was no snob.
We'd talk about everything, from movies to family to philosophy to history to reminiscences of childhood. He was a voracious reader, and not a quick, but a deep thinker.
One of my favorite things about him was how I'd toss an idea out there (as teachers do), and he'd say, "Aw, that's horsesh*t!" (though he rarely swore), and then we'd talk and talk and talk. Sometimes he'd end up agreeing with me, sometimes I with him, sometimes there was no resolution, but it was always the camaraderie, the being together, that was important, not the conclusion.
Once at the dinner table he said, "Hey, Heather. Maybe we ought to keep Baquet around after the kids go off to school, and he can teach us all the stuff we should have learned in high school." He even told a reporter later that I was the family's "resident academic adviser." I loved him for his attitude toward personal growth.
That was January through June, 1995, and I stayed on in the house when they went to Canada for the summer.
It wasn't long before we discovered that an old pro like him didn't NEED help in learning his lines. But he kept me on as an on-set assistant, which largely meant hanging around with him, recommending books, talking about what we were reading--and occasionally taking a phone call or reminding him of an appointment.
From our time back in Utah, we had become close enough that we could be "real" with each other. And as Robert was the only weekly character on "Lazarus," he carried much of the stress that made the show go. This sometimes manifested itself in--shall we say--a bit of pique? But he never turned it on me.
One day, he had a radio interview to do, and... I forgot. And we missed it. (Can you imagine the radio host building up to the interview, and then receiving no call?)
Knowing I had no choice, I prepared to face The Wrath. I went to him and said, "Hey, Chief. I screwed up. We missed the blah-blah-blah interview."
He looked down for a minute--as I stood there waiting for it--then looked up, and said: "We should probably be more careful about these things."
Whew!
Shortly after the season was over and we'd gone back to our respective homes, I called to say hi, and he told me he'd been diagnosed with cancer. They moved to L.A., and over the next few months I went by the house whenever I could. The philosophical discussions we'd had in Utah and New Mexico now took on some depth, some urgency, and I learned a lot from him.
In February of 1997, with things looking better all around, I left for Japan to teach for a year, but my one year became nearly five.
On one of my summer visits home, I flew up to Canada to see Bob and Heather. One night when Robert and I had washed, dried, and put away the dishes, he set down his towel, wrapped those giant arms around me, and said quietly, "I love you, Jim."
It won't surprise you, then, that one of the primary reasons I moved back to the U.S. in late 2001 was to be near the Urichs.
Regrettably, I only saw them a few times before the news came.
I was staying at my parents' house in April 2002, having just started a new job. My parents were away, and when the phone rang one morning it was my aunt saying, "I'm sorry to tell you, but your friend died." "What friend?" I asked stupidly. That's how much this took me (and most of us) by surprise.
I called Robert and Heather's house immediately, and their daughter Emily answered. She told me something that pains me to this day: They had called me the night before to come to the bedside for Bob's last moments. But because it was my parents' phone, not mine, I never got the message.
No chance to say goodbye. I'm crying again (still) as I write this, ten years later.
Heather and I are still friends, though I've been in China over eight of the past ten years. I'll always be grateful to her and Robert for their great kindness, their great generosity, their great love.
I'm sure that everyone who knew him will agree: no one has ever taken his place.
I miss you, Chief.
For more about the Urich family today, including details on the newly-released The Sound of Music Family Scrapbook, visit Heather's website.
Categories: Bio, Compassion, Gratitude, The West