On Legacy and Aging
Don’t want to read? Listen here.
This month, my cousin Evan should have turned 50. He died in 1994 at the age of 18 from Ewing’s sarcoma, a horrific pediatric bone cancer. Evan was a shining star – brilliant (admitted to Harvard even after missing his junior year for cancer treatments), engaged (president of the BBYO youth group), funny (too many examples), athletic, and a committed and dear friend. [You can read his Harvard Crimson obituary here and his Detroit Jewish News one here.]
I often write about legacy and how one wants to be remembered. And most people I’m writing to and about are looking back on a long life, well-lived, to create or solidify a legacy. But not everyone is that fortunate.
And yet, legacy is not restricted to the old. Evan left a legacy of kindness, connection, and direction. I learned so much from him (even being his wise, older cousin of 3½ years). His keen questioning of my post-college plans led me to the career of today. My junior year in college, rather than going abroad, I stayed in Ann Arbor so I could go home most weekends and see Evan if he was in town, just to hang out for even a few minutes. One weekend, he asked me about what was next, and I told him. I planned to take the LSAT and go to law school, being one who enjoys arguing and reason. He said, “Really? I think you should find a way to work in the Jewish community. It is where you are most at home, and happiest.”
I did not even know that it was an option! And yet, he was right. His mother was the executive director of a large temple, and she patiently answered my questions as I applied to the U of M School of Social Work for their Project STaR program (Service, Training, and Research). STaR was one of a handful of programs where a student would graduate with both an MSW and a certificate in Jewish communal service. (The program evolved and is now the JCLP program, still housed at U of M’s School of Social Work).
The rest, they say, is history. Evan’s keen advice in spring 1994 led to my graduating in 1995 and heading right into my masters program.
He was 18.
I keep up with his friends – they are all leaders in their communities, and all would agree with me that Evan’s life and legacy, though so cruelly cut short, remains an inspiration.
Evan should have turned 50 this month. I find myself wondering what he would have done with those 32 years. The causes he would have led. The family he would have. The people he would have redirected, the way he redirected me. The friends — already leaders — who would have followed him further. We will never know. But here is what I do know: The best legacies are not measured in years. They are measured in the lives they quietly, permanently alter. Evan altered mine. And in doing so, he is with me every day.
He was 18. He will always be 18. And somehow, all these years later, he is still pointing the way.
And I talk about him to his mother, because she deserves to know that we have never forgotten him. That the boy she raised is not only alive in her heart, but in ours too. Gone but not forgotten is not a cliché. It is a practice. It is a choice we make, again and again.
So I’ll leave you with this: Who shaped you before the world considered them old enough to do so? And when did you last say their name to someone who loved them?
Fondly,
Kari
