To My Brother
DO/DO NOT GO GENTLY...
Recalling the oft-quoted lines of Dylan Thomas’ poem --
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
-- evokes reflection and provides a backdrop to help understand my brother’s journey.
“Do not go gentle into that good night”, Thomas avers. For my brother? Try not to go gentle into the morning light, the afternoon sun, the evening dusk. Chip did not wait until the 11th hour to ‘burn and rave’. Not in his DNA.
When you lose your father at the age of five, there are all sorts of consequences, some of them wrenching. But from that total eclipse of the sun, he was able to extract a gift: a unique sensibility, that sparked a unique kind of intensity, that resulted in what all of us in his orbit recognized as a unique life force.
What was it? This Chipness? A few fragments:
Honesty over compromised truth
Sacrifice over comfort
Tenaciousness over discouragement
Openness over guardedness
Approach over avoidance
We all wish he could have been with us longer. Lord knows his mind and desire to engage were turbo-charged to the end. He had more to give, more to produce. But we shouldn’t grieve over any uncompleted agenda or unfulfilled quests. Nothing about his life was abated. He left it all out there
Chip did not go gently into that good morning or afternoon.
In the first part of his life --
On a range of athletic fields; in classrooms at Sidwell and Princeton; with his friends; with his family; with his -- as what can only be described as fierce -- relationship with ideas
his spirit was fully extended.
In the second part of his life --
With the energy he brought to the National Cancer Institute; to his relationship with Paula, her family, and Tess
his spirit was fully realized.
There’s one minor point I’d like to get on the record: Chip chose wisely and bravely in his life’s work, which was basically to pursue one intellectual ardor after another. That choice was unorthodox. Not always an easy road. It often meant he didn’t have the societal support and other rewards that most of us require for ego sustenance.
It’s easy to imagine that he would have been quite a fish in whatever sanctioned pond he might have inhabited. Many thought the law was a natural fit (picture the number of opposing counsels that would have been ground into cornmeal).
Instead, he would throw himself into one difficult and compelling subject after another, subjects that required commitment and the ability to grapple with complexity, often with no obvious reward other than the work itself. Many of us have the value of cultivating the life of the mind, but few of us actually live it out. Not going gently was Chip’s coin of the realm for a life congruent with this core value.
In December of 2013 Chip received the leukemia diagnosis which set off the third part of his life. The diagnosis, cruel to be sure, was assimilated by Chip as a gift. It proved to be an edifying and clarifying force that enabled Chip to access qualities within himself that yielded some of his finest moments.
Early on in his treatment at Georgetown, when Chip was going through the most brutal phase of chemotherapy, I would visit him. Coming into his room, I would start blinking, thinking I needed to clear my eyes. Chip would often have a beatific (!) expression on his face. The expression, I figured, must be the result of some chemical cocktail. But no, it became apparent soon enough: no altered consciousness there. It was a natural expression. A piece of it, I believe, was serenity, the serenity of a confident pilot approaching headwinds. It was evident that Chip was looking at his predicament in a clear-eyed fashion, rising to the struggle before him, exploring the intellectual challenges posed by the illness and the medical industrial complex of which he was now a member. But there was another piece.
Compassion is the closest word I can muster. In the hospital setting it had an other worldly quality; the expression conveyed an empathy and caring for all those trying to comfort him. And, Chip being Chip, this was not just a feeling, but a moment-to-moment expression of concern and understanding for what others were going through vis a vis his plight. He had flipped some ontological switch. Even though he was in the dire situation, addressing our needs became paramount.
Thus, the beatific expression, which soothed us; but also, unwittingly, revealed a Man in Full, a Life in Full.
That grace animated his days and enabled us to more often be our better selves. That grace prevailed for the 32 months that remained to him.
So, the third act of his life was not compromised by self-absorption or fear, certainly not by passivity. And, Dylan, no rage. Au contraire, he did go gently.
If Chip has (maybe already has had) a conversation with his colleague, Dylan Thomas, he can enlighten him on the ascendant path of going gently into that good night, the passageway to that path earned through a life of not going gently.
When I face the end, I would hope to use Chip’s grace as a model and travel this path; however, I suspect that is beyond my grasp. But I am emboldened by the fact, the experience of having had the great good fortune of living a life in which I was fiercely loved by my brother.
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I would like to express my gratitude to a fraction of the people who enriched his life:
To the caregivers at Georgetown. For the quality of their care and, what is more important, for allowing themselves to break role and receive from Addison as well as give to him.
To all his cousins, niece and nephew who were so there for him. And who, I suspect, are benumbed by the particular loss of the person who -- let’s be clear -- was the irreplaceable paterfamilias of my generation.
To his Sidwell friends -- the inner circle (Frank, Dusty, Steve) and all the others he reconnected with the past few years -- an essential dimension in his life.
To Connie, Rick. For all the love, laughs and rich history.
To Bill. For shepherding and being shepherded by Chip through difficult times.
To Debra. For all her support.
To all the Robinsons. For embracing Chip and who, God bless them, saw and appreciated his core.
To Art. For all the shared experience, engaged dialogue, kindness and sweat over the years. Like me, Art feels he got more than he gave. But, damn, did he give a lot.
To Tess. For providing her father with so much joy and pride. And whose pulsating spirit embodies Chip’s essence. That spirit should and will be a consolation to all of us as we go forward.
To Paula. For being the love of his life and the ballast that enabled him to be his true self.