Cause of a Careless Smile: Remembering John Bierly
The truth is, I’m sensitive about my teeth.
When I was in 6th grade, my brother and I were mimicking our favorite pro wrestling maneuvers on his bed when I took an elbow drop in the mouth, and it led to a painful and scary emergency visit to a dental specialist who tried to not only pull them back into place, but save them from rotting out of my head.
The result is that since then, I’ve had a smile that looks a little off, because my front lateral incisor sits in front of my lateral canine. In pictures, I often try to consciously hide or at least obscure this from the view of any camera that photographs me.
In very rare instances, though, I can’t do that, because I don’t have the presence of mind to feel anything negative. Flashing a smile not only becomes careless in these instances, but it becomes necessary to display just how damn happy I am when I’m in the company of someone I love dearly. One of the very few people on Earth that give me that reckless abandon to show my crooked smile is John Bierly, a caring, thoughtful, intelligent, beautiful and exceptional human being.
Case in point, the photo below. At the 2019 Star Wars Celebration held in Chicago, I was extremely excited because it was an event that would bring some of my absolutely favorite people on the planet to me, since I live in the area. Friends that were forged first through lengthy, intense conversations about shared interests didn’t take long to blossom into something truly special, unique, valuable and again...exceptional.
Not only was Paul Hermann – who grew rapidly from a podcast sparring partner nearly eight years prior and into one of my closest, dearest friends – going to stay with me in my dinky Evanston apartment, but I was going to see Justin Bolger and John Bierly, two of my favorite people on Earth. When I saw John in-person for the first time since bear-hugging him at my wedding over two years earlier, just outside the exhibit hall at McCormick Place, he insisted on taking a picture before we began walking the halls of Celebration.
I couldn’t hide how excited I was not just to see him, but to spend good, quality time with a friend whom I adore and love well beyond the simple fact that we had a plethora of shared interests. I flashed that smile without shame or care because this was just the beginning of spending time with John, an all-too-rare and valuable occurrence in life. John inspired such happiness that any lingering self-consciousness simply melted away into total irrelevance. This moment demanded nothing but the biggest smile to be mustered.
John igniting my careless, crooked smile in April 2019.
Those feelings that come with the mere thought of his own smiling face are just the beginning of the seemingly endless and exponential fractal of paths that forged more than a friendship, it was a brotherhood. John was far more than a fellow fan of Superman or Star Wars, he was a philosopher, who lived and exemplified the nature of good character and had the strength of purpose and effective communicative ability to tell you, with absolute certainty, why those principles matter just as much, if not more in our own world as well as our favorite, fantastical fictional worlds.
And he was giving. The very first podcast I ever sat in on was in the summer of 2009, and John – already a well-known entity at the host site Batman-On-Film – was the most welcoming and kind-hearted person I could’ve ever hoped to be paired with for that show. Little did I know all the joyful paths that first interaction would lead to, up to and including long conversations into the night about our dreams, our hopes, and our shared perspectives.
That substantive digital friendship didn’t take long to become something much more, and when we finally had the chance to meet each other in-person in 2013, it was as if we’d been spending time together for decades prior to that. John’s kindness, generosity, intelligence and curiosity always became immediately apparent for anyone fortunate enough to have spent time with him, and it’s that monumental heart, always with a baseline of love and respect, that will continue to persist in the hearts and minds of everyone who knew him.
Knowing John Roger Bierly, Jr. was a privilege, but more importantly, it was a gift. A gift to anyone touched by this extraordinary and exceptional human being. I was a comparatively minor presence in his life when compared to the people who were lucky enough to speak to him or be near him on a daily basis, and yet, his loss affects me as if I have lost my own brother.
Because I have.
John and I embrace at my wedding in March 2017.
No matter how much time passed between our conversations, it was as if no time had passed at all. He was easy to talk to, wise in his counsel, frank in his appraisals and loving in his friendships. It was easy to look into the best parts of ourselves after a conversation with John, because that was the part of us that he always believed in, and we know that for a fact because he told us so at every possible opportunity.
It’s impossible to try and rationalize that someone who was so loved, and who loved so much in return is now gone. We have to get used to the fact that losing him will never make sense. That’s why it becomes all the more important to hang on as tightly as possible to every interaction and memory we’ve ever had with John, and I would be extraordinarily surprised if any memory anyone has ever had about him is anything but a bright and positive one.
John Bierly was one of the best men I’ve ever had the privilege of knowing. Nothing will ever change that, and he will always be missed. We can hate the fact that he’s gone, but we also can’t ignore the joy and privilege those of us who knew him will now always have simply because we knew him.
That irrepressible spirit we will never forget makes it easier to believe that…
“No one’s ever really gone.”
I love you, John. Goodbye, my friend.