Honoring a great man [Archive]

fuse

07-18-2013, 10:26 AM

I woke up this morning to some devastating news.
My high school Latin teacher, Dr. Tom Heslin, died yesterday when a dump truck struck him while he was riding his bike.

http://www.capitalgazette.com/news/for_the_record/severna-park-biker-killed-when-struck-by-dump-truck/article_cb80d00a-54cf-5968-ad1e-fc3582dc1989.html?mode=jqm

Dr. Heslin was one of my true mentors, a great friend, and one of the first people to truly treat me like an adult, which is pretty heady stuff for a fourteen year old.

Its not likely anyone on DBR knew him, but anyone who did know him, there life was richer for having met him.

Requiescat in pace, magister.

I share this in hopes that anyone who takes the time to read this makes the effort to "Carpe Diem" - Dr. Heslin was my John Keating (Dead Poets Society - "Oh Captain, My Captain!").

In his honour, Catullus 3 in Latin and then translated into English.

Lugete, o Veneres Cupidinesque,
et quantum est hominum venustiorum:
passer mortuus est meae puellae,
passer, deliciae meae puellae,
quem plus illa oculis suis amabat.
nam mellitus erat suamque norat
ipsam tam bene quam puella matrem,
nec sese a gremio illius movebat,
sed circumsiliens modo huc modo illuc
ad solam dominam usque pipiabat.
qui nunc it per iter tenebricosum
illuc, unde negant redire quemquam.
at vobis male sit, malae tenebrae
Orci, quae omnia bella devoratis:
tam bellum mihi passerem abstulistis
o factum male! o miselle passer!
tua nunc opera meae puellae
flendo turgiduli rubent ocelli.

Mourn, oh Cupids and Venuses,
and whatever there is of rather pleasing men:
the sparrow of my girlfriend has died,
the sparrow, delight of my girl,
whom she loved more than her own eyes.
For it was honey-sweet and it had known its
mistress as well as a girl knew her mother,
nor did it move itself from her lap,
but jumping around now here now there
he used to chirp continually to his mistress alone:
who now goes through that gloomy journey
from whence they denied anyone returns.
But may it go badly for you, bad darkness
of Orcus, you who devour all beautiful things:
and so beautiful a bird you taken away from me
o bad deed! o miserable sparrow!
Now on account of your work my girl's
slightly swollen little eyes are red from weeping.

fuse

07-23-2013, 08:18 PM

Thank you all for the private and public notes.

I've been privileged to have heard a lot of really excellent professional speakers in my line of work.
I've never seen anyone so eloquent as when Mike Heslin, Tom's oldest son delivered the eulogy.

I hope in my lifetime I can be half as well regarded and have some small impact compared to Doc.

Here is the text of the eulogy:

Good morning everyone. In case I can’t get through this with my composure intact, I would just remind you all that my dad choked up at pretty much every Severn awards assembly. So think of it as honoring his legacy.

I am lucky to be able to say that my father, Tommy to some of you, Tom to others, Dad to two of us, just Doc to most, is the best man I have ever known. Early on, he was dealt a pretty tough hand in life. At the age of 8, he was diagnosed with Type I diabetes, a terrible degenerative disease, the complications of which he would have to deal with for the rest of his life. Many people would have seen this as an excuse to be unproductive, a crutch to lean on in times of weak performance. But Dad saw it differently. He once told me that if he had been diagnosed with the same disease at the same age, but had been born 20 years earlier, he would not have lived to see his teens. Through this lens, every new day was a gift.

Dad was thankful for every day, and he approached each day with hope, optimism, and determination. This approach--along with the support of his friends and family, including a kidney from his sister Mary Ellen--sustained him through a kidney transplant, as well as a pancreas transplant, four toe amputations, a triple heart bypass, and a host of other surgeries that most of us in this room would consider major crises, yet he mostly shrugged off. Never once did I hear him complain about his health issues. He’d say, “Ahh, I just deal with it,” and just like that, matter-of-fact, the people who loved him could deal with it too.

A lot of people noticed his optimism through the years, and of course his smile. But too often, we think of smiles as plastered on, and optimism as naive. While Dad’s smile seemed to be ever present, it was not just fixed in place. Ernest Hemingway once said, “Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.” Dad’s rare breed of happiness was deeply borne and carefully considered. When I, as an 11-year-old just discovering the wonders of angst, asked my dad during our morning commute, “Why are you so FREAKING cheery all the time,” he told me, somewhat amused, “Every day you have two options. You can be upset because things are bothering you, or you can look forward to making them better.”

Little did he know, this attitude in and of itself was making things better. Just by being who he was, in light of the medical complications he had overcome, he changed the way his students and colleagues thought about people with disabilities, and the obstacles they were facing in their own lives.

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My dad’s first love was learning, which he inherited from his mother Mary, and from both of his parents he got his keen intelligence, which he shared with his brother and sisters. He loved to play trivia one-upmanship with his sister Joanne before her untimely passing, and afterwards he often mentioned interesting things he wished he could share with her. He was also infinitely proud of his brother John when, while raising his family and working way more than 40 hours a week, he completed his Bachelor’s degree.

Before his own father died, my dad would say that the saddest day of his life was the day he had to leave grad school. He majored in Classics at Trinity College in Hartford, CT, and went on to get a Masters and Ph.D. in Linguistics at UConn. Sometimes people asked him why anyone would get a Classics degree, and his standard response was, “Well, it got me a job and a wife, so that’s a start.” In truth, studying Classics at Trinity did introduce my dad to the love of his life: my mother Cindy. But it also introduced him to another enduring love: Italy.

Dad studied abroad in Italy in 1975, and it was always a dream of his to go back. It took him 26 years to realize this dream, until 2001 when my parents visited for their 20th wedding anniversary. Since 2001, he’s been back nearly 20 times, and for the last 5 years he’s gone at least twice a year. Through Italian Club, Senior Projects, and the Italian Exchange, his name became synonymous with Italy at Severn. And for recent exchange students from the Astolfo Lunardi school in Brescia, Italy, he came to define America and their experience here.

But going back to Italy was far from his most important life goal. Once, when my brother Andy was 13 and going through his own adventures in angst, he challenged my dad with a question he didn’t think he could answer. “What is the meaning of life anyway?” Most fathers would be justified in telling their kids to go read a book or something and come back when they want real advice. But our father offered a clear, direct, and instructive answer. He paused to think for just a moment, then said, “It’s to leave the world a better place than you found it.”

This response illuminated one of the key driving forces behind how my dad conducted his life. But this subtle counter-challenge to a 13-year-old demanding answers also showed why he was such a powerful educator. Whether it was a philosophical conundrum, a new Catullus poem, or a personal record in the pool, Dad had the ability to push people to think differently and surpass themselves, by meeting everyone on his or her own level.

He loved his job, and he was really good at it. As a Ph.D. with a brilliant mind, he could have sought a tenure-track university professorship or a range of positions in the world of academia. But he found his niche as a guide and mentor for high school students, and he found a wonderful home in Severn School.

Dad went all-in on everything he did at Severn. As a coach, he redefined winning for his student athletes to focus on having fun and challenging themselves above all else. Of course he did his fair share of traditional winning as well, and was inducted into the Severn Athletic Hall of Fame earlier this year. As Senior Class Dean and Key Club advisor, he introduced innovations that continue to live on with each class, such as Spirit Week and Sing for Your Supper. And of course, in the classroom, Dad became personally invested in helping each individual student grow and even learn some Latin, still remembering students who came back 15 or 20 years later.

When it came to his profession, my dad was both proud and humble. He was proud of the accomplishments of each and every student he taught or coached, and humble about his role in their achievements. The outpouring of stories and memories on Facebook and the sheer number of students and parents who have reached out to my family pay testament to his immense influence.

But from my dad’s perspective, this outpouring is simply an echo. Every year he received dozens of letters from students whose lives he had shaped as they grappled their way toward adulthood. From my own perspective, the things I heard from my peers about my father evolved from the embarrassment of hearing “your dad is the man!” at parties in high school, to in the years after college, “your dad has had more of an impact on my life than anyone except my own parents.” (Those are both direct quotes.)

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Dad loved his work, but as my Uncle John has pointed out, he lived for his family. One day in college, he commented to a friend that he wasn’t really interested in a serious relationship and might never get married. The next day, he met an exchange student from Wellesley, named Cindy Romer, who would become his best friend and the love of his life. My parents were crazy about each other, right up through their trip to Tuscany and Rome last month, and the celebration of their 32nd wedding anniversary last week. As I look forward to my own wedding next year, the complete love and mutual respect they showed each other every day provides a shining example to aspire to.

For my brother and me, he leaves a legacy of what it is to be a man and a father. At home he devoted himself completely to the happiness of his family. He had a green thumb in the garden, and a flare for variety and spice in the kitchen. He died working to be as healthy as he could be for as long possible, for his family. The same empathy that made him a great educator made him an incredible father, growing and adjusting with his sons from birth well into their 20s. And the same corny sense of humor that got eye rolls in the classroom got eyerolls from sons and Mom alike at home. That sense of humor he inherited from his father, Tom Sr. He also inherited from his dad what was, in the opinion of them both, the good sense to avoid conflict whenever possible. His generosity he shared with his sister, Mary Ellen. Every March 2 he made sure that his students and colleagues celebrated his kidney’s birthday with him. Our time has been cut short, but when it comes to dads, my brother and I won the lottery.

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We are really struggling with why my dad was taken from us so early. But we find strength in the stories of men and women he has helped along the way to achieve greatness today and tomorrow. We find comfort because after a life of so much suffering and medical challenges, the way he left this world was instantaneous. And we even find a hint of his trademark optimism, because we know his memory and his lessons will live on in each of us, in the way we conduct our lives and the knowledge we in turn pass on to others.

Cicero said, “Viva enim mortuorum in memoria vivorum est posita.” The life of the dead is retained in the memory of the living.

Dad, you will be missed, but never forgotten. I hope that right now you are taking a break to look down on us in between a round of golf with your father and a game of Scrabble with your sister Joanne, and smiling. Just as you lived and surpassed your dream of getting back to Italy, know that through the thousands of lives you touched, you have left this world a better place than you found it. Ave atque vale. We love you.