Just before Christmas, my old lunch pal George passed away.

He was 95 going on 14. He once told me with a sly grin, “I think the reason I’ve lived so long is because I had so much to learn.”

This was pretty funny coming from a man many considered a living saint.

George Leslie Cadigan was a retired Episcopal bishop who had spent most of his adult life comforting those in need with his good humor and deep faith and fighting for social justice with the spirit of a blitzing linebacker.

George was long ago captain of the Amherst College football team, and perhaps the only thing he loved more than a lopsided college football game in Amherst’s favor was casting a dry fly into a beautiful river.

We had been lunch pals for almost a decade when I moved my mother out of her house of 50 years in Greensboro and up to the assisted care facility on the coast of Maine, where George delightfully haunted the corridors with his booming voice and debonair ways.

I knew saying goodbye to her old life was probably the toughest thing my mom had ever had to do. But George was there to welcome her warmly to Maine and help ease the transition. He was the most eligible widower in the place, a dashingly handsome devil who never failed to have a witty word for a good-looking lady.

“I never kiss any of the ladies at the Highlands,” he once confided to a mutual older friend. “Because if I kiss one, they’ll all want to be kissed.”

I’m not so sure about that, though. Mom and George took up almost immediately and became constant dinner companions and often went on planned excursions together and sometimes to church, where George had been the rector half a lifetime ago.

Every afternoon they seemed to have cocktails at her place or his.

I once asked my mother if there was anything she needed or wanted to tell me about her busy social life, and she smiled like a Southern sorority girl with a secret.

“Yes, sugar,” she said. “Mind your own business.”

A Redemptive Journey

My lunches with George happily continued, though. It was during one of these lunches that he came out with the amusing bit about living so long because he needed to learn so much. The comment came while he was quizzing me about my most recent book.

The book told the story of how my daughter Maggie and I spent the better part of a summer chasing river trout and seeing the sights of America with our elderly retriever, Amos. Maggie’s mother and I had just divorced, a civil parting that nevertheless left us all a little shell-shocked and confused. Son Jack and his mom retreated to a New England island to try to recover their equilibrium. Daughter Maggie and her dad and the old dog simply headed out West in a 20-year-old truck.

Amos was pushing 13 that summer, Maggie was half his age, and I was just hoping to find some modest answers and a little peace of mind in the clear currents of a few bending rivers far from home.

Just about everything that could possibly go wrong did so.

The trout went out of their way to avoid our dry flies, we briefly lost the dog in Yellowstone, and we blew up the truck in Oklahoma. We also met a stream of characters who made us laugh and cry and, though I didn’t quite realize it then, collectively begin to heal my damaged faith in people. In short, we had the time of our lives. Even Amos enjoyed himself, though you probably had to know the crusty old coot to recognize this.

George Cadigan had been one of the biggest cheerleaders for our freelance enterprise, the strongest advocate of these much-needed faithful travels.

“So, looking back, what do you think you’ve learned from the road of life?” he suddenly barked at me as we lunched — strictly avoiding the subject of his busy social life with my mom, I might add. George was a genius at suddenly reversing the tables.

Though he was smiling, I could see he genuinely wanted to hear. George had three grown sons about my age. Perhaps he was thinking about them and whatever dark and unforeseen angels they might be wrestling with.

I quipped that I would need to think about it and have to get back to him in the future. I mentioned a letter I’d included in the book, written to my traveling fishergirl on a brown paper grocery bag while the three of us (father, daughter, unrepentant dog) were camping on a high desert mesa beneath the stars. It was my clumsy attempt to make sense of a world gone awry.

“Maybe I’ll make you a list,” I agreed. “But it might sound kind of trivial.”

“I’d love to see it,” George assured me. Then he boomed, “Nothing in this life is trivial. When you grow up enough, you’ll know that.”

A Joyful Observance

After “Faithful Travelers” came out, I received hundreds of letters from people who had enjoyed the story of that unplanned odyssey of the heart. Many specifically mentioned the letter from the starry hilltop.

Ironically, though, I never got around to making that list for George.

His memorial service was held in Maine a few days before New Year’s Eve. I had to miss it because my family had gathered here in the Sandhills for the holiday.

I understand it was a packed house and a joyful observance full of funny George Cadigan stories, lively trout tales, with plenty of laughter and tears. A mutual friend of ours, another retired Episcopal priest with his own wry take on life, told how George had referred to death simply as “graduation.”

I like that. It suggests that he never quite finished growing up.

So while I drove Maggie and the dogs home to Maine the other day, an idea suddenly popped into my head. Here we were 10 years later down the road of life, and Maggie was now almost 17, already planning her escape to college. She and the dogs were pleasantly snoozing and Elgar’s “Enigma Variations” was playing softly on the radio. George dug Elgar. Elgar was probably a dry-fly guy.

It was time to make George his list.

George’s List

1. If possible, always take the scenic way home. You’ll get there soon enough. You’ll get old soon enough, too. All we have is now. So take a back road now and then and enjoy the ride before it’s over.

2. Pay attention to everything. Especially the small stuff. If God is in the details, salvation may lie in seeing what’s been there all along, just waiting to be noticed.

3. Listen to your head but always follow your heart. Try to figure out why you’re really here and what makes your heart leap. Joy is not in things, someone once said, it’s in us. Join the dance even if you don’t know the steps. They’ll come to you.

4. When things go wrong, as they surely will, have a good cry. But then have a good laugh and go try to cheer somebody else up. Laughter heals any wound. Smiling at someone does wonders for you both.

5. You are what you eat, think, say, feel, and do. If not, you’re either an extraordinary actor or a complete phony. Remember, someone is always watching. It could either be God or your future mother-in-law. Either way, better be who you really are or else.

6. Enthusiasm counts. There are no coincidences. Grace just happens. Blessed are those who know what is enough.

7. Speaking of God, have a heartfelt chat every day. I can’t say why praying works any more than I can explain why breathing works. But both things can work wonders. Sometimes even miracles.

6. Never pass a Salvation Army kettle or a stranger asking for money without cheerfully reaching into your pocket. Whatever you give away will come back in some other form, multiplied. This holds true for everything but your goofy political opinions.

7. If you lose something, quit searching for it and it will eventually find you. Nothing is ever really lost. It just goes ahead and waits for you to catch up.

8. Quit worrying about stuff. The bad news is that everything changes. The good news is that everything changes. Chances are your worst fears will never happen — but your best hopes just might. Be sure to admit your mistakes. Forgive everybody else’s. If life is a school of hard knocks as advertised, at least the teacher grades on a curve.

9. Make a fool of yourself at least once in life, preferably many times. Being a fool for something or someone is good for what ails you and keeps the kid in you alive. Jesus couldn’t get enough of kids.

10. Scan the assembly instructions, make a to-do list if you must, measure twice, paint the underside first, look both ways before crossing, vote early, always say thank you and mean it, remember to duck your head, and when in doubt go wash your hands. Simple is best. Do it before you’re asked. Don’t lie, because your memory isn’t good enough. Don’t cheat, because you’ll never forget. This is pretty much everything I know about how to survive in the tough outside world.

11. Stay in touch with old friends. Talk less, listen more. Take a long walk around the reservoir. Accept whatever comes along the path. Remember good things come when you’re looking the other way. Stop trying to make it happen. Ditto complaining. Expect nothing and you won’t be disappointed. Don’t forget to breathe. Cultivate the quiet. Call home every Sunday night. This is pretty much everything else I know about how to get a leg up on the inside world.

12. Be patient and grateful. Patience is a fisherman’s greatest friend. Gratitude greases the gears of the universe. Take the world but not yourself too seriously. Get plenty of rest, but rise early to look at the stars. Travel light. Be kind to creatures great and small.

Still More to Learn

Maggie woke up somewhere about this point in our homeward trek and wondered what I was doing driving with one hand, writing with the other.

I explained I was finally making a list of things I’d learned in life for George Cadigan. I said I hoped readers of this column might send me their thoughts on the subject, as well.

“It makes me sad I never got to say goodbye to him,” she said. “I loved George.”

“He loved you,” I said. She was, after all, the spitting image of her Southern grandmother.

Another idea popped into my head. I asked my grown-up fishergirl if she would someday make her dad a list of things she’s learned thus far in life.

Maggie stared at the highway for a moment. We were just crossing the Susquehanna River. The glinting rapids reminded me of a winding river out west and a letter written long ago beneath the desert stars.

“Sure,” she said and yawned. “Is it for George, too?”

“No,” I admitted, smiling like a 14-year-old. “It’s for me. I’m hoping to learn a few more things before I have to graduate.”