A FILM THAT STAYS WITH ME
An Ordinary Man Named Wutheridge
The Bishop's Wife (1947)
A Christmas film, an aging professor, and a few thoughts about growing older, finding pleasure in ordinary things, and the simple kindness that costs nothing.
I've been growing a white beard. For the first time in my professional life, I've decided to see what happens if I simply let it grow. And I have to admit that somewhere in the back of my mind is a man I've admired for a very long time: Professor Wutheridge, as played by Monty Woolley in The Bishop's Wife.
Not the mustache, mind you. The beard. There are limits.
When I first saw the film, I was certainly taken with Cary Grant's Dudley, the charming angel who arrives to help a bishop who has lost his way. But the character who stayed with me was the elderly professor. Wutheridge wasn't the bishop, or the angel, or the center of anyone's grand plan. He was a man with books, memories, conversation, and a life that had accumulated a few regrets along the way.
He was also wonderfully alive to the possibility of an interesting afternoon.
There's a quality to Wutheridge that I've always liked. He's learned enough to be thoughtful without deciding that thoughtfulness requires solemnity. He can be studious and a little silly, reflective and companionable, aware of what time has taken without overlooking what it still offers. He enjoys a good conversation. He seems like the sort of fellow who would make room at the table for one more chair.
When I was younger, I looked at him and thought: That's the kind of old man I'd like to be.
It's an odd thing to discover, years later, that you're approaching the age at which you once imagined somebody else's old age. I don't mean that I have suddenly become Professor Wutheridge. Far from it. But I understand him differently now. The passing years bring a collection of stories, a few aches, and an increasing appreciation for the ordinary pleasure of being in good company.
There's a joke of his about cemeteries that I've borrowed shamelessly over the years. Every time he passes one, he feels as though he's apartment hunting. I have used that line often enough in conversations about aging that it may now be part of my permanent repertoire. The older I get, the more I appreciate the trick of it: acknowledge the inevitable, then make somebody smile.
For a long time, when I thought about growing older well, I thought in terms of responsibility. Work hard. Keep your word. Do your duty. Those things mattered when I was young, and they still matter. But over the past five or six years, I've begun to think there is another kind of maturity, one that doesn't announce itself quite so loudly.
It has more to do with kindness.
With being willing to see something good in a difficult person. With letting a small annoyance remain small. With remembering that somebody else may be carrying a burden you know nothing about. With not confusing seriousness of purpose with the need to be serious every minute of the day.
Years ago, I worked with a physician whom I particularly admired for the way he treated people. I told him once that I appreciated how nice he was. His answer was simple: “Well, nice is free.”
I've carried that sentence with me ever since. There isn't much ornament to it. It doesn't require a grand philosophy or a long explanation. It asks very little, and it can change the course of somebody's day.
That's part of what I see in Wutheridge now. He isn't without disappointments. He isn't pretending that every chapter of his life was written exactly as he would have wished. Yet he hasn't allowed the past to close him off from the present. There is still room for curiosity, for friendship, for humor, for another conversation.
I suppose that is what I hope for, too. Not to become a perfect old man, whatever that would look like, but to remain interested. To have something worth reading, something worth making, and somebody worth listening to. To be a little gentler than I was yesterday, and perhaps a little quicker to laugh at myself.
So yes, there's a white beard coming in. Whether it will ever resemble Monty Woolley's is anybody's guess. The resemblance that matters more is the one I have to practice, day by day.
Except for the mustache. Definitely not the mustache.
🎬 After the Credits
Some films stay with us because of a scene or a line. Others give us a person to revisit as we change. Professor Wutheridge has been keeping me company for years, and I suspect he'll be around for a good while yet.
Hey, thanks for stopping by - see ya' next time!
