On Sunday, I heard from my parents that our friend Arie Gamliel (Larry Ginsberg) had died suddenly, at home, from a massive MI. It's taken me a couple of days to wrap my brain around the whole idea of Arie being gone. He and his wife feature prominently in a number of my fondest childhood memories, and I got the pleasure in 1989-90, when I was in Israel, of getting to know his sons, as well (they were 2 then; they'll be 17 this spring, I believe).
Arie was larger than life, in many ways. To my four-year-old sensibilities, he was the biggest man who could ever live (he was over 6 feet and had a booming voice and a raucous laugh). He frequently recalled the first time he and I met (though I have no exact memory of the event) - I was rollerskating around the floor of my parents' kitchen and I skated into his leg (or that's how I remember him remembering it). He taught me about bad multilingual puns, talking robots (he had a
2XL), being a fan of the Red Sox even in their worst seasons (of which there were many), and much more.
Arie was blind from not-quite-birth (having been left in the incubator for too long, he lost his sight, as he told it), but that never seemed to stop him. One of my most vivid memories of Arie is from after he and his wife Nurit moved to New York (they were there for a couple of years after they lived in the Boston area, before making
aliyah (moving to Israel) in the early 80s). My mother, sister, and I went in 1980 for a week to New York City and stayed with Nurit and Arie in Astoria. Of all the things we did in New York that week, the one I recall most vividly was from our trip to the (at that time relatively new) World Trade Center. We entered the lobby and Arie decided he wanted to go up to the mezzanine. But he wanted to do it
his way - by going up the down escalator. The security guards attempted to stop us at first. But when they realized that Arie was blind, they just left us to it. I can only imagine what others thought, watching a 6'4" blind man, a nine-year-old, and a 13-year-old walking up a down escalator.
My mom and Nurit just stood back and laughed. And then took the up escalator.
After Nurit and Arie moved to Israel, we were in less frequent communication, but when we went to Israel in 1985 to visit my sister, we visited with Nurit and Arie and Nurit's parents. And when I was in Israel again in 1989-1990, I was a frequent visitor at Nurit and Arie's apartment. Arie taught his sons to call me solely by a childhood nickname (that only Arie called me by the time I was, say, over the age of 8). "Suminu!" they'd say. "Aifoh Suminu?" ("aifoh" = "where is"). And it was through Arie that I got my job at the Blind Students Unit at Hebrew University in Jerusalem when I needed a volunteer job. I had been supposed to work as a reader for blind students, as there weren't enough English-speaking volunteers that spring; when, one week into my job there, the English-speaking secretary to the director of the Blind Students' Unit quit, I was quickly moved into her position. I learned all about how to survive in an office environment in those three months, skills I still use.
Arie and I were in only sporadic direct contact over the past couple of years, but I heard about what was going on with him and he heard about what was going on with me through his and Nurit's contact with my parents. My friendship with him was one that could withstand months of not being in direct contact; when we did connect, it was as if we hadn't been out of contact at all.
He was a friend, and in many ways a mentor - he taught me a lot about living the life you want, choosing the path that's right for you whether or not people agree with your decisions. And he taught me to laugh even under adverse conditions.
And for that, I will be forever grateful.
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