A Rose Helps Quiet the Noise Inside
My father, Richard, 91, was missing his departed friends and folk, so I suggested planting a memory garden.
Close to his heart was Leon Rosenberg, his friend from Randall School to the University of Wisconsin and medical school. They knew each other from ages 10 to 89, when Leon died. They were born weeks apart: my father on Jan. 22, 1933, Leon on March 3.
"A rose for the Rose," Richard said, recalling his friend's nickname. So roses went into the ground first: peach, yellow and pink. In California sunlight, pastels look perfectly at home.
These two grew up as boys from Madison who later went east and west to become distinguished in their fields. Leon, the West High valedictorian, became dean of Yale Medical School and later chief science officer at Bristol Myers Squibb.
My father, a pediatric immunologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, shared classes (even a cadaver up in the science building) and a basketball league with his pal, the son of immigrants. Once Leon took half an hour, deep in conversation with the record clerk, before buying "Pictures at an Exhibition."
Richard's mother, Marie, a widowed nurse, predicted Leon would go far. She was right. I heard many stories about this mythical friend who urged my father to join him at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center as medical residents.
The brilliant blue eyes, the disarming smile, the way with words that expressed exactly what he meant: I came to share what my father loved about Leon. He showed up by surprise to my father's 80th birthday party, and they embraced, Richard shedding his WASP reserve.
A sheer joy to witness.
My father and I wept on the phone when he told me Leon was close to dying. He had a chance to tell him how much his friendship meant. I represented our family at Leon's funeral in Princeton in July 2022.
It hit me hard: a friend like that, with a mountain of shared memories, including his daughter's wedding and my birthday party in Washington, is gone and never coming back.
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