REFLECTIONS

 

                   The Princeton Class of 1957 fiftieth reunion Memorial Service

 

            Blessings on us, dear friends – for, oh, how we miss them.  On these reunion days, it is sometimes all that I can think about – all that I can pray about:  my loss – our loss – and, I guess, what seems like their loss too.  Somehow it does not seem right. They should be here too.

            Maybe they are in spirit and in the Spirit of God.  I like that idea.  I find some consolation in it.  Maybe you do as well.

            But today it does not seem enough.  It seems unfair.  Many of them planned to be here.  It was part of their life plan.

            Why just us?  Why not them too?

             I am aware that I am angry.  It is a diffuse anger. I am angry that they are not with us in their persons: their eyes, their hearts and shoulders, their hands, smiles and reminiscences and laughter.  Perhaps I am angry . . . . . maybe at life, at fate, at God, or just missing them and wondering.

            Arnie Fink.  I cannot remember how many times Rabbi Arnie and I participated in this class of ’57 memorial service together, when we prayed for brothers – some of them gone now ten or twenty years or more.

            John Robinson; John Lee Robinson, a fellow chapel deacon who didn’t even make it to graduation with us.  John Lee Robinson of the great class of 1957.

            Arnie was supposed to be here to help out with this.  Arnold Goodfriend Fink.  We think that we know each other, but I did not know that wonderful middle name of his until I read it in the list of the deceased.

            And Bill – Bill of the Triangle Shows and so many songs.  I see him playing the piano, his head up – smiling – inviting us to sing along, even when the cancer meant he could no longer.  I see his handsome face.  He loved having a handsome face – eyes set seriously, back straight – the last time playing the organ in the chapel at his beloved Tadoussac: “Lead on. O King eternal”.

            William Grant Glassco – entrepreneur of the theater, director, mentor, translator, theater founder, father.  He was my friend at Princeton, flat mate at Oxford.  I can see his sheepy but sly smile when he returned from the grocers, having overspent our food budget on two of his favorite English cheeses that we just had to try.

            A few years later his first son and mine were born the same month with the same name, Benjamin - his Benjamin dying tragically in an infant’s accident.  Did Bill ever fully recover?  Is he somehow reunited with his Benjamin now?  I like to think that.

            Bill was taller that I am.  He loved, when we would meet again after some months or years, to peer down and examine the top of my head – sort of sifting through it.  He would give me a report on what was left – until there was no longer much point in it.

            Then he would give me a book to read.  He was always trying to broaden my education.  He left me one more book after his death.  His daughter brought it to me.  He died on my birthday.

            Maybe it is not fair of me so to remember Bill this day – this way.  There are many others – other friends, your friends, too, loved ones, whom, if you were at this microphone, you would remember – whom you are remembering even now . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Maybe Bill can somehow stand for them:  Arnie, Ed Said, Eddie Goldman, Dick Fisher, Bill Barnard, Johnnie Apple, Dave Hudnut, Ted James, Michael gone a quarter-century – all of them, whose names will soon be read. And we think of spouses, too, and even children – loved ones, whom we will hold – whom we hold in our hearts before God.

            We miss them.  We mourn them.  We weep with those who weep.  Maybe, too, we are angry as we pass again through the stages of grief and come, if not to acceptance, at least to thanksgiving.  For surely we are also met – maybe we are especially met – to give thanks.   We honor them as we also give our thanks for them – to them – for life, to life and to the Source and, we pray, the Destiny of all life. 

For their friendship, we give thanks – for their laughter and jokes and songs, their foibles, and all that they accomplished: so many good works and work – songs written and sung, businesses built, legal counsel given, books written, new buildings, inventions engineered, students taught, schools strengthened, soldiers service, plays directed, friendships made and kept, community service, children raised and loved, other dear ones, gifts given.  We now honor them each one. We remember.  We pay tribute.  We memorialize them.  We hold them in our memories and in our hearts.   We hold them up before God.

            Remember them, Lord.  Keep them.  If you can, keep them and let them live on in You, we pray.

            And, maybe then, they are here – in their way, in God’s way: Bill, Arnie, John – each and all of them: our friends, our buddies, our companions, our loved ones, whom we honor, and for whom – for their precious selves, for their love – often, but especially now, on this day of reunion, we do give thanks. 

 

                                                                                          Fred Borsch