Christine's Stories
Tom's Middle Daughter, Christine Bieselin Clark, shares her stories, anecdotes and remembrances of her Dad.
From Christine Bieselin Clark:
November 14, 2020
Dad's 3rd Angelversary
Most everyone has some version of this memory from their childhood. You’re riding in the back seat of the car with your sisters, Dad’s driving, Mom in the passenger seat. It’s been a while, maybe a long while? All of the buggies have been punched and all the eyes are weary from spying. Someone says, “how much longer?!” in a sing-song whine. My Dad had a stock answer for this, and I’ve been hearing his voice saying it to me this year, a lot.
“We’ll be there when we get there and not a minute sooner.”
At the time, my childhood self found this to be a totally infuriating answer! It lacked clarity and specifics. It didn’t allow me to free myself from the prison on unknowingness. How much longer would I have to be on the hump seat fighting off car sickness??? Ugh!
But today, now, in these most challenging days, it pretty much the best answer possible.
Tom Bieselin probably wouldn’t have been described by many as having patience. My Dad was easily angered by any lack of common sense, grammatical errors and the overuse of the word “like” as a descriptor. He would grit his teeth and turn red, grrring to contain himself for all the years of raising three teenage daughters. I even remember a bedroom door being removed from its hinges after too many rebellious slams from one of said daughters.
What my Dad did have was an endless resource of perseverance. He was the most disciplined person I know. He worked hard every single day of his life, even the last one. He finished what he started. His word was trusted. He would and did, give people the shirt off his back. He was leaned on my so many and never crumbled from the weight of it.
“We’ll be there when we get there and not a minute sooner.”
In these pandemic times, when it all washes over you in a big wave of just TOO MUCH, take a breath. Look inside to find that bit of Tommy B in all of us, the grit to persevere, to be leaned on and hold ourselves and each other up while we move to the other side of this. We can, and we will, arrive.
*and maybe open a Heineken when we get there
From Christine Bieselin Clark:
Father’s Day 2020
Every summer, in the late 1970’s and into the 1980’s, after school let out and before the heavy August humidity hit Long Island, my family would pile into our station wagon and drive to Lido Beach for the annual Fireman’s Picnic. In the time before teenage self-importance took over, this was the absolute BEST time! Lido Beach had/has a park where you are assigned a “mushroom”, which is a very large, open air structure shaped like a mushroom, with picnic tables, grilling stations and the persistent ocean breeze from the Atlantic. Each Engine Company was assigned a numbered mushroom and that was your base station for the day – to visit with the kids of other Firefighters that you hadn’t seen since last summer, eat ridiculous amounts of food and generally welcome the summer with open arms.
It was magic.
One summer, I’d like to say around 1980, we were gifted our very first 212 t-shirts and they were, quite frankly, the cat’s pajamas. Wearing them gave you the ultimate “My Dad” bragging rights and we adored them, wearing them until they fell apart. (My Dad was a firefighter in Brooklyn, NY at a pretty special place known as “The People’s Firehouse”…. you can learn more about it here: http://www.thefirehousebk.org/history)
When my Dad passed on in 2017 my sister Julie and I worked on building a digital memorial for him. Digging through old family photos, I found this gem of all gems which has Julie wearing that coveted t-shirt and me behind her just being a weird kid I wondered what ever became of those shirts and did some digging which turned up nothing. They didn’t exist anymore and in my overwhelming grief of missing my Dad, I just wanted one so very, very much.
It took me a while, but I eventually recreated them, using this image and my treasure trove of memories as my guide. This past Christmas I gifted them to my close family and two dear friends, welcoming them to my “fire family”. And now, for Father’s Day, in honor of my Dad, Tom Bieselin, and all of The Brave, I would like to offer them to all of you that have taken the time to read my little story. Proceeds will go to the New York Firefighters Burn Center Foundation https://www.nyffburncenter.com/, an organization that my Dad proudly supported.
Thanks for those summers Dad. They still make me happy.
From Christine Bieselin Clark:
November 14, 2019
Two years.
It is strange that two years can go by and feel simultaneously like eons and a flash in the pan. What I have learned in these two years is that the word “gone” doesn’t apply when someone dies. My Dad is with me every day. I see signs all the time that remind me of him, of moments we shared during the 45 years he was with me in person. Not long after he died I drove down an unfamiliar street, diverted on a road construction detour, that led me to a sea of firetrucks and the car in front of me had a license plate that had 212 in it, my Dad’s old engine company in Brooklyn. Hi Dad. There were cardinals and “con la mosca” and a million other things that gave me pause and remembrances. Then there is the “Double Yolk Gang”….
https://www.facebook.com/christine.bieselinclark/posts/10157077058093896
I don’t feel like my Dad is gone, he’s just not with me in the same way.
From Christine Bieselin Clark:
Fathers Day 2019
When we speak of heroic acts, they often involve dramatic circumstances and grand gestures. Then there are the smaller moments, the slightest notions of kindness that stick with you for a lifetime…
I had a pretty serious kidney infection as a child and it took several years for me to really regain all my strength. During that time, I played on our Church softball team, badly. I mostly stood out in right field waiting for enough equally terrible un-athletes to finish striking out so we could move on to the next uneventful inning.
On one such occasion, I was out there in the field and I really needed to use the restroom. The game was taking FOREVER and the urgency for my situation was mounting. I was desperately trying to weigh my options of what to do when it just happened. There I was, far out and alone, soaked Levi’s and public humiliation looming right in front of me.
The inning ended and I was terrified of everyone seeing what had happened. I tentatively made my way in from the outfield and My Day was walking towards me. He had taken his flannel shirt off and was just in his black t-shirt. He wrapped the flannel around my waist to hide my embarrassment and let the coach know that we had to leave early – no fanfare – total calm - efficient extraction.
My Dad didn’t’ talk about it. He took me home and ran the bathtub and made me a grilled cheese sandwich. He was my Hero of Kindness that day and so many more days after.
Cheers Dad!
From Christine Bieselin Clark:
April 28th, 2019 - Today would be my Dad's 74th Birthday.
My Dad was famously annoyed by holidays, particularly Birthdays. He was perturbed by the notion that if people weren't kind to you on all of the other days of the year, why choose Fathers Day or your Birthday to extend some niceties. I think about that often, how we should extend our kindness in regular doses instead of annual bursts.
Don't get me wrong, Dad loved a social occasion, a reason for people he loved to come together at the house he and my Mom worked so hard to make our home. This photo was taken at my 21st Birthday in the dining room. Aunts, Uncles, Cousins and Friends were all there. My Mom made a cake and Dad worked the BBQ and told stories, a cold beer in hand while he waxed poetic.
I still talk to him every day and miss his friendship more than anything. Today, I am sad that I can't call him on the phone but so very, very lucky to have had the coolest of the cool to be my cheerleader and confidant for as long as I did.
Cheers Dad.
From Christine Bieselin Clark:
It was clear to me from a young age that My Dad really wanted to be a Dad - decidedly, aspirationally and excitedly embraced being "Dad". He would let us put barrettes in his hair, jump off his shoulders in the pool, be the only Dad chaperone on a school trip. My Dad was always willing and present.
In June of 1979, I was almost 7 years old and I still believed in the Tooth Fairy. I also loved to draw, paint, create. On June 10th of that year, I lost another tooth and like all fantasy believing kids, I tucked it under my pillow with a note and went to bed with the hope of a shiny silver dollar exchange with the famous Tooth Fairy!
She wrote back! She even fulfilled my demanding wish to draw a picture of her, gorgeously done in black bic pen ink. I was thrilled and this note has been safely kept for almost 40 years. I would later come to know that the Tooth Fairy was fantasy and even later I would come across this note and realize it was My Dad and his tiny writing and his somewhat terrible but lovingly adorable portrait of the Tooth Fairy.
The note also reveals some pretty awful spelling and grammar on my part and that My Dad was, and will forever be, the only person allowed to call me "Chris".
Here it is.
