Shmuel Chaim ben Yisrael HaKohein, We've Missed You
Reunited, in Scott's merit 
Lifting Scott heavenward j
It's 11:51 and I just got home. I was in front of my apartment for a while talking in the car with a dear old high school friend. Before that I was at Mendy's restaurant for about three hours at a fantastic high school reunion. This was not a social gathering of the sort that would be inappropriate during the months following my mother's death. This was prompted by the death of Scott Gordon. This was a bunch of men gathering years after we were children together to face our mortality.
ul
We ended with maariv, we middled with a dvar Torah, we started with figuring out who was who. Some I recognized and others I didn't. A few of my old classmates were not shy with commenting about my not looking anything to them like I did as a kid. Within moments everyone came into focus. It felt comfortable. It felt right.
p
I am compelled to write - not just because several of the guys told me I'm a good writer. Immediately following Scott's death emails started circulating, talk of a get together swirling. Tonight it happened, like a dream.
p[
I remembered Scott aloud as a vulnerable, sensitive soul. I recapped some of what I've written about him before (here - right after he died, here - right after his funeral in the rain). I spoke about how what we all aspire for really is to be truly human. I related that Scott's dying on my mother's shloshim hit me hard with the reality of my own mortality.
[
In six hours I need to be up and start all over again. Scott used to bemoan the fact that in high school they never taught us to love Judaism. Tonight I confessed my pain over the fact that today I am them. When I made that comment one of the guys said that in a way we have all become they. As the kids today say, true that.
[
If only I could sit here forever and write about all the conversations and revelations of the evening (like the fact that one of my classmates was just diagnosed with diabetes, another almost died from a heart attack last April, and that Scott would often mention my name to his sister - though he didn't reach out often, even to her) I would. If I had the time and felt it was prudent I'd burn the midnight oil reliving my first meeting with Scott in eighth grade, corresponding with him from MTA in ninth grade, I'd remember reuniting in tenth grade till we graduated YHSQ together, I'd recall corresponding from Israel, and I'd sigh regarding the talk about re-finding him a month before he died, and, and , and , and , and...
]
Goodnight and G-d bless
me never to forget us
to remember then
posted by rabbi neil fleischmann @ 11:50 PM
3 Comments:
Another great posting
You fell out of touch and then reconnected a month before his death? Wow.
Jacques, thank you so much for arranging this, not to mention for deciding that rabbis should be treated. I will, please G-d, donate tzadakah of the amount that the meal cost. For me it was an incredible night. I continue to relive the reunion and the lifetime ago experiences it brought back for me.
Kishke. I'm sorry if I was unclear. The truth is not that I was in touch with Scott a month before he died. A month before he died a mutual friend from H.S. asked if I was in touch and I said I wanted to be. At that time neither of us knew where to find him. A month later Scott's sister found the mutual friend, Tammy, who called me and said, "Neil, I have to tell you some really sad news."
Post a Comment
<< Home