The Lesson of a Life

A new school year begins with death, a seemingly miserable way to start an adventure which already promises plenty of pitfalls. And the stresses of senior year suddenly pale in the face of personal and public tragedy.

I arrived at our lottery-winning suite to share my grief with Steve, my roommate and friend, over the the old yet vital grandparent we had each lost in the small space of the previous two weeks.

Not only did we lose dear relatives in these deaths, but also the unrecoverable histories, manners and knowledge that they carried with them. Not a week later the Harvard community was devastated by the suicide of a student and the loss of a brilliant mentor taken far before her time. I grieved for them also.

My grandfather, a 92-year-old golf-playing, law-taking wonder of a man, died while I was backpacking in the Talkeetna mountains of Alaska. Three days later, innocently wondering what had happened in the past month. I returned to civilization and learned of his death.

My initial reaction, on the black payphone, thousands of miles from my family, was overwhelming sadness. It took me a few minutes to let out an anguished cry.

My mother's caring voice calmly told me that the funeral of her father had been the previous day. She told me that she and my grandmother had decided not to try to contact me before the completion of my trip because they had been reminded by one of my grandfather's close friends that "Aaron would have wanted it that way."

My grandfather had been one of the strongest supporters of my adventure. Other students on the trip told me how their parents and grandparents could not understand why they would want to leave the creature comforts of home for the wilderness of Alaska. All the while I kept thinking that my 92-year-old grandfather was jealous of my opportunity. "Make sure to take pictures and keep a journal," he told me, "so you can show them to your grandkids."

I did both, hoping that I would be able to show them to my grandfather.

I flew to Milwaukee, Wisconsin the next day hoping to find some solace in my family and my grandfather's memory. And, remarkably, I did. I listened to tales of my grandfather's entrepeneurial efforts, his fight to found a synagogue and his petition to allow an ethnic family to live where they wanted, but where they were not wanted.

I was told of his failed run for judgeship as a young man, and of his insatiable hunger for learning. On the second day of my visit, though, having been strangely soothed by these stories and accolades, I learned of the death of Steve's 84-year-old grandmother. We talked the next day and tried to ease each other's pain. Our already powerful friendship was strengthened as a result.

Such coincidence of bad fortune seems unreal, but it is always a risk of living. My grandfather could hardly have lived a fuller life. In my family's moment of intense grief, that was our comfort. He had his triumphs and endured his tragedies, including the suicide of a son, but he always continued to live.

Life is an opportunity, not a burden--that is the legacy that my grandfather has left me. Steve and I returned to our fast-paced lives after our losses, just as the Harvard community continues after its tragedies. I will carry the deaths of my two grandparents and the divorce of my parents with me forever, but I will not grieve forever.

Death is the natural order of things, but so is the life in between. By the end of my stay in Milwaukee, I felt strangely empowered. My grandfather was a strangely flawed but remarkably admirable man.

His life is an example that will always, if even from the back of my consciousness, guide my own.

Dedicated to Dorothy, Aaron, Gertrude, Lester, and Corrine, my grandparents.