"The Death of a Friend"

                                                                                                 Sydney M. Williams
                                                                                                 October 25, 2011

Note from Old Lyme

“The Death of a Friend”

“When a great man dies, for years the light he leaves behind him, lies on the path of men.”

                                                       Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)

Our firm lost a good friend when Fred Stein died suddenly Sunday evening. He was just shy of his 85th birthday. Fred’s greatest success was the collecting of friends; he was a “people person.” Along the way he also amassed considerable wealth. In the world of finance, he was a giant and he knew and was known, loved and respected by thousands of all ages.

His death causes us to pause and reflect on our own mortality – the importance of family and friends, and to consider: by what legacy will we be remembered?

So busy are we in our daily lives, with our concerns for the immediate future that we rarely (and fortunately) do not think of the fact that this will all end one day – fortunately in the sense that if we were to pass our lives in reflection nothing would ever get done. His death makes us realize the value of time. It becomes crystal clear that each moment that passes is one that has disappeared forever.

Retrospection, in small doses, is healthy. Death is a natural and inevitable consequence of life. Shakespeare wrote: “All that live must die, passing through nature to eternity.” A giant sequoia might live more than half a millennium; an insect, perhaps a day or less. According to Joel Cohen, a mathematical biologist at Rockefeller University, the global average age for man is 70. By that measure, Fred lived a full life. But death always arrives too early. On learning of one’s death our minds immediately turn to words unspoken, of deeds undone. It serves as a reminder to do the things we want to do, and to speak and be with those we cherish.

The greatest gift of life is a sense of wonder and curiosity – traits natural to children and too often sloughed off by adults. Those gifts presuppose a belief in the future. Fred embodied that attitude. It was what drew him to young people. It is what made him so knowledgeable about fields as diverse as art, literature and opera. Instinctively or knowingly, Fred recognized that life is a continuum, with no knowable beginning and no knowable end. He knew that the value the elderly bring to the young is not so much wisdom as a link to the past – a past they otherwise know only through books. And the value the young bring to those of us who are older is a glimpse into the future – a future we will never see.

At the risk of being overly sentimental, Fred’s death is a reminder that there is nothing so valuable as family and friendships; those relationships should be nurtured, so that the rewards they provide can be shared and enjoyed.

Above all else, we should remember Fred for his friendship, for his wisdom and for the curiosity that kept him forever young. He enriched our lives and we are all the better for knowing him.