Monday, June 29, 2015
It's hard losing a brother and especially hard losing one who is younger. Dave was three years my junior and someone who I came to admire and love only slowly in adulthood. As youngsters we fought like tigers at times, sibling rivalry personified, and I couldn't wait to get away.
But, after I'd left our home in Brooklyn for Boston, the enmity softened and we began to explore more deeply our shared work experience in television and our shared interests in family, ham radio, photography, and most especially, sailing. In addition to our regular family holiday celebrations, we often cruised together in the summer on Dave and and his wife Jane's various sailboats and, sometimes, on chartered ones, too. Dave, Jane, their two children Brain and Steven, and me and my son Andy, covered most of the coast of New England from Greenport LI to Mt. Desert Island ME as our children went from toddlers to teens.
These were good times and we inched closer and closer over the years until as full-blown senior citizens we became real friends and talked by phone every Sunday evening at eight. As is true of most seniors, our calls often revolved around our aches and ills, but we also covered our shared technical and photographic interests, family, politics, and anything else that leapt to mind. The support I received from Dave during these calls (as was the support my small son and I had from Dave and Jane my whole adult life) was invaluable. They will be truly missed. Sunday evening suddenly has a big hole in it.
The Sunday before he died, the call ended, as always, with "talk to you next week." Sadly, that was not to be the case, but his memory lives in my head and heart and his family, our family, is intact. That is the important thing.
Uncle Dick
