Remembering Ben

A Note from Gary

Dear Friends and Family,

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Thank you for joining us for Ben's memorial service.

We felt the love. Did we ever. By our estimation, there were (at least) 400 of you in attendance, numbers that we never imagined, so many lives that Ben touched in his short time on earth.  There were his bereft peers, his adult mentors, his grandmother’s caregivers, neighbors and, of course, family members.  Thanks to the magic of Zoom, guests from Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, England, Germany and France joined their North American counterparts.  And, if our goal was to bring Ben back to life for one shining afternoon, mission accomplished.

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In the year since Ben’s untimely passing, our family has mostly worked through our grieving on our own; many of you did not even know that Ben had passed.  We weren’t ready to go so public, and then we were.  I personally found the experience of sharing this unforeseen tragedy with so many loving and supportive people to be a balm for my troubled soul.  How meaningful to see how much he meant to so many people, to hear stories that we had never heard before, and to bask in the reflected glow of the character traits which came up again and again: brilliance, kindness, gentleness, and humor.  

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And the message you gave us yesterday was so loving, so positive, so joyous in celebrating his many virtues, that we cannot help but agree with the ancient Jewish adage: “His memory will be a blessing.” 

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Benjamin, wherever your soul has wandered, you will live on in the many lives you enriched. 

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Love, Dad