As we marked this season of graduation and valedictory, I was reunited with my long-lost high school yearbook, which turned up on a dusty shelf at my parents’ house.
Sprinkled among the exhortations to “stay sweet,” and “have a good summer,” are the full-pagers from the people who sustained me through those sometimes turbulent four years, the friends who knew me when I wore ponytails and pimples and still deigned to hang out with me, the touchstones to my past and to my future.
As I literally turned back the pages of time, I ran across one of those long, meaningful letters from my friend Eddie, salutatorian of the Morristown High School class of 1978. He was junior class president to my junior class secretary; editor of the newspaper when I was editor of the yearbook; played trombone in the band when I played violin in the orchestra.
When I met him in 7th grade, he was already a legend, as he had emerged as one of the brightest lights of the district’s “Double A” program for the able and ambitious. We traveled through the same classes together through junior high and high school, and also formed a deep friendship outside of school.
When my friend developed a major crush on his friend, Eddie and I facilitated their (her) attempts at a budding relationship by acting as the other half of their double dates. When it became apparent that I might not be asked to the junior prom, Eddie acted as my agent (at the time unbeknownst to me) to get our junior class treasurer and my not-so-secret junior high school crush, to ask me to go.
Ed, as he was called in college and his professional life, was one of the smartest people I’ve ever known, whether it was as 12-year-olds dissecting frogs in middle school science, or as one of four students in AP French senior year dissecting romantic poetry.
After scoring a perfect 1,600 on the SATs, he sealed his legendary status at Morristown High by proceeding to take nearly all the SAT subject tests “just for fun” and scoring perfect 800s on all of them. He didn’t do this to show off or win a prize. He did this because he truly loved to learn and found great joy in challenging himself. After speaking at our graduation and winning a slew of awards, he went to Harvard, graduated magna cum laude, and then won a Marshall Scholarship to study in London where he earned two masters degrees. He came back across the ocean to study at Harvard Law, again graduating with honors, before launching a brilliant career as one of this country’s pre-eminent attorneys in media and intellectual property law and the First Amendment.
Back for a moment now to an excerpt from the 17-year-old Eddie’s note to me:
“I can’t wait to leave for college, but I want to maintain my friendships as long as possible, and I’m almost afraid to go somewhere where I will know next to no one. Every year, we’ve been able to return happily to each other’s company… we’ll always be able to remember the fun we’ve had and get together in the future to fill each other in on the time we’ll miss together. You are probably one of the few best friends I have ever had. I can neither imagine nor bear not keeping in touch with you.”
Monday night, I got the phone call I never expected. Eddie, the brilliant, wise, funny, charming, boy who had graced my life, was dead. The call came from our friend Barbara, who had gotten the call from his mother, asking her to spread the word among our close-knit circle of high school friends.
My heart had started thudding when I saw Barbara’s number. Though we’ve stayed in touch over the years and even had the gang over a couple of times at our home, the last two times she had called had been as the bearer of bad news. In fact, the last time I had seen Barbara, Eddie, and Rick was two years ago, at Rick’s father’s funeral. As sad as it is, a parent’s death, at this point in our lives, is not unexpected. But Eddie? Only 55? Who had seemed his usual, wonderful self when I last saw him?
Barbara filled me in: that summer of 2014, he had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer; this past February, doctors told him he was cancer free. Then, in March, he started suffering migraines: the cancer was in his brain and spine. In late June, he was in hospice and only one week later, was gone.
I’m still trying to process the fact that Eddie is no longer with us, not just a sparkling light extinguished from my own personal universe, but a true, deep loss to this world. I wish I had called him to ask him to lunch in the city; I wish I had organized the gang to come over again; I wish I had been there when he won his most recent legal award. His last line breaks my heart: “I can neither imagine nor bear not keeping in touch with you.”
Nor could I, Eddie, but I’m going to have to. I am grateful for the time we did have together. I only wish it could have been more. I miss you already.
