Thanks, Roy

I was asked recently to be part of a panel discussion on the topic of “models.” And for 90 minutes a group of three professors talked about models of all types: cultural, scientific, political – even fashion models. We talked about every kind of model but one: the models we have for how to live our lives. I could have raised it, but I didn’t, in part because I knew how I would need to answer, and it seemed out of place there: my model is Roy.

I miss Roy more often than is quite reasonable, given that we were friends, but not intimates. But he has for many years been a model for me: another person without children, who loved his work, but who also loved people so much and so well. For me - an atheist looking for meaning, without the obvious link to a next generation in children of my own – Roy exemplified something crucial about what it means to be part of the future. He did it, not through mainstream fame or fortune, but through connection and the promise of community. He did it though generosity, intellectual curiosity, and a tireless passion for justice. And, as so many people have said, he did it through commitment to his friends, and, crucially, through laughter.

I realize, especially after reading all the posts here and seeing various tributes, that I was one of the hundreds of people who admired Roy and was touched by his kindness. I was also one of the lucky few who got to see him every month in a reading group here in DC. That reading group was my primary link to Roy, and for many years an intellectual home for a rather rag-tag assortment of historians. As of last fall, the group had been going 25 years, since Roy and a few others founded it. By the time I joined, almost ten years ago, it was a great but notoriously inconsistent group; our crowd varied from 4 to 14, depending on a range of somewhat mysterious factors. During Roy’s last year, however, people in the group tended to show up in force, whenever we thought Roy would be able to come. And when he was there, we'd linger long: nobody wanted to go home, fearful that he might not be at another meeting.

The last meeting Roy attended was in fact was our reading group “reunion" held in September. He came, even though very sick, and he and others told stories of favorite books and outrageous comments made over the many years and many incarnations of the group. We talked about public history and private histories, and we laughed a lot. The reunion had been organized consciously and quickly, once we realized last summer that Roy was declining so rapidly, but we all pretended that it wasn't what it was - a chance to be with him, to linger a bit longer.

I have nothing like Roy’s strength of character (and his ability to sleep so little), but his unflagging optimism and generosity remain an inspiration to me. When I find my students to be too much trouble, or when the demands of academic life begin to make me selfish, or even when I'm politically too demoralized to think I can care anymore -- I think of the kind of world Roy wanted and helped create, and I try to be more generous of spirit and more brave of heart.

It’s a cruel twist of fate that I will be out of town (or the country) for each of the major memory-events for Roy. For that reason, the words and images here have meant much to me. I hadn’t written because I wasn’t sure what I could add. And then I realized just how often in the last several months I have thought of Roy and held his life up for myself – placing it up against the light, looking at the parts I know and the parts I have only read about, marveling at how Roy still manages to scatter intellectual integrity, political commitment, kindness -- and a good many jokes -- in his wake.