A Friend in Mr. Rogers

In I'm Proud of You, Tim Madigan explores his friendship with Fred Rogers.

Everyone knows television's Mr. Rogers, but your book introduces the adult dimension of Fred Rogers—particularly his focus on the struggle to find meaning in human suffering. What did he mean when he'd say, "anything mentionable is manageable"?

Fred's point was that there's nothing that I could tell him that would not be received in a compassionate, nonjudgmental way. And through that compassion, there could be healing. Fred was a Zen master without even knowing it. He lived his whole life moment to moment—when he was with a person, he was completely present for that person. In very subtle but powerful ways, he would urge you to come clean about what was really going on in your life, in your heart—what your pains were, what your joys were. He was saying, "nothing you could tell me would ever diminish my opinion of you, my affection for you."

Nothing?

Sometimes we do things we're not proud of, but Fred would always say, "the only thing that evil cannot stand is forgiveness." He also liked Henri Nouwen's saying—"what's most personal is most universal"—the suffering we try to keep most secret is that which we have most in common with other people. He realized there was profound spiritual growth to be had from embracing suffering.

You write so lovingly of your friendship with Fred Rogers, so openly about your depressions and your feelings—you didn't worry this memoir might leave you too emotionally exposed, too vulnerable?

I made a decision from the very beginning that I was just going to put it all out there—anything mentionable is manageable, right? Yeah, it's difficult stuff— not just my insecurities, but my problems with my marriage and my father. I think the father-son relationship causes a lot of pain, so I'm hoping that men who read this book can get some healing.

It's like you're a guy writing a women's book, no?

Talk about vulnerability—there's this one group of men, I just cringe when I think of them reading this book. I play on a men's hockey team, and hockey players pretty much fit the stereotype of "guyness." So I have this horrible mental image of walking into the locker room after everyone's read the book and nobody's going to want to sit by me. I mean, I talk about crying and praying and God and loving another man—oh, my God!