Eulogies
Alex was an intelligent, funny, kind man. He was a fantastic friend and as good an older brother as one could be.
His empathy, and perpetual, sincere politeness affected all who met him. However, Alex never recognized the impact he had on the people and places he crossed, the impact that was so clear to so many others.
This impact first became apparent to me at St. Bernard’s, our elementary school, when I came home with my report card on which I was referred to as Alex. Alex, at the time, had graduated two years earlier, and had moved on to Trinity School. The mix up never bothered me, but instead became a point of pride. The kind of thing that I would tell Alex and to which he would inevitably reply: ‘Nick, that could not have happened. I am so much better looking’.
In Trinity, his impact continued to be clear. When I was a freshman, a countless number
of older students and teachers wanted to talk to me about Alex. Guys would tell me about how hysterical he was, girls about how kind and how much of a hopeless romantic he was, and teachers about his latest written creation. When Alex no longer roamed the halls of Trinity School, but moved on to Princeton, somehow, the student body refused to move on from Alex. When I was senior and Alex was two years out, more than one of the younger students would refer to me as Alex’s brother. They remembered him for the pieces he created and read at the semi-annual coffee houses. At the time the reference to Alex’s comedic genius seemed par for the course, but it strikes me now that those few minutes with Alex in that dark, hot sweaty coffee house have created for many people vibrant memories that will last for many, many years.
The impact that Alex was having at Princeton University ought to come as no surprise to anyone but Alex. No matter how many times I told him, he never believed how much he touched people at St. B’s or Trinity and he certainly had no idea how much he was touching people at Princeton. He often told me that he had ‘like 3 friends’ at school, but within minutes of my arrival at Princeton, two beautiful girls were leaning out of a 4th floor window screaming Alex’s name at me. Never having experienced this flurry of female attention, I let them continue to scream at me for some time before informing them that I, unfortunately, was not Alex. The girls seemed, quite honestly, heartbroken to have missed their chance to greet Alex on campus.
The moment in which Alex’s impact became clearest to me, however, was when a young woman whom I had never seen before ran up to me and bursts into tears. She had just heard that Alex had been diagnosed with Ewings Sarcoma. I had always known that Alex with his humor and wit could make people laugh. But it is comforting for me to know that as Alex’s presence brought that laughter, his absence brings tears.
- Nick Adam
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