Lennie is gone! He died in December.
I found out a few days ago from Stacy, a woman I knew when she was a graduate student 20 years ago. Lennie was a graduate student in the same lab. It was love at first sight - on my part anyway.
He was married.
And now Leonard is gone.
I thought he was just the cutest little thing when I first met him. I was in my early 30s, freshly divorced from an abusive husband. A single parent of 2 children. He was in his late 20s - and he was cute, lively, amazingly smart - and unique. I’d be talking to him across the lab bench where he’d be supervising some experiment, when his head would suddenly disappear below his side of the bench.
Where did you go? What the heck?
The first time I poked my head around the bench to see what happened to him.
Had he fallen and could not get up?
Oh no, he was just stretching, practicing the splits, of course, as you do when you’re running the student fencing club in your spare time. He was constantly stretching.
We’d also have to watch what we’d say around him. If someone said something that contained anything quotable, he’d be reciting the lyrics or the poem or the line from the movie. I don’t remember if he actually sang the songs but I certainly learned a lot of lyrics, culture and poems through him - and I started to watch what I was saying.
When he was not working on lab stuff, you’d find him reading books, history books - in that quiet room between the labs. He had the long hair of a musketeer and wore, what can only be described as pirate shirts on a regular basis. That he would fence in his spare time was almost too predictable.
I have always had a soft spot in my heart for musketeers, especially - D'Artagnan - and Lennie was an amazing representation of a pirate musketeer, if that exists.
Everyone in the lab knew that I liked Lennie, except for Lennie. People enjoyed teasing me. Eventually someone was going to talk. I was always prepared for it - and as nothing untoward had happened, I was not really worried.
Eventually someone did spill the beans - and - to everyone’s credit it was me:
One day, Lennie was talking to Stacy in the lab. Stacy knew about my crush - and when I ran into them in mid conversation, I misinterpreted what I heard them say as indicating that Stacy had spilled the beans. She had not. Instead, I spilled the beans myself when I asked “How did you figure out that I had a soft spot in my heart for you?” to which he responded. “Not until just now.” - as Stacy was making hand motions “Nooo” and “Stop” in the background.
It was hilarious, even in the moment. I left all red-faced, but the world did not end just because I was a bit embarrassed.
That’s been the most amazing discovery about my life, no matter what happened, the rock kept spinning. There was always another wake-up, another day, another breath.
Later that day, I was working in the office, Lennie poked his head in the door to let me know: "I have a soft spot in my hear for you, too." That was all - and that was the last thing we ever spoke about the incident.
I’ve never forgotten the kindness and the sentiment.
At the time he was married to an unhappy woman. Eventually, I realized that he was unhappy, too. We met the wife, she was nice enough, but there was a bitterness about her - a deep hurt that she was taking out on the person who was safe.
He had shared with us that she liked a show that I also loved, I think it was the Golden Girls. One day, as she stopped by to visit, I said something about liking the Golden Girls too. She responded with a very terse “I’m so glad that Lennie talks about me in the lab.” Her insecurity came across as meanness.
She was not truly mean, just bitter. She had every right to be bitter, too. Her life had taken a drastic turn when something went wrong during a routine medical procedure. She lost her short term memory and other assorted executive functions. A perfectly capable, self supporting adult found herself being in need of a supportive partner at all times. Lennie was engaged to her when it happened and “for better or worse, sickness and health,” just came a little early for him. He could not abandon his fiancé now. From then on, his partner carried a little black notebook that told her things like “how to get home from work”. “What is my address” and “what is my husband’s phone number”.
This was before cell phones so he carried a beeper at all times to make sure that she could call him, if she was lost or in trouble. Sadly, she used the beeper not just for emergencies but to assert control - at least that’s the way it felt to him.
But he was a good man. He stuck with her through thick and thin.
That is - until Lennie met Lisa.
I think they met at fencing, but I am not sure. And it was love. At first, they didn’t do anything but talk. Talk is the sexiest thing of all.
Talking, listening, being understood, making that connection - I long for that. He longed for that. I think we all long for that. Lennie and Lisa made that connection so many years ago.
He moved out of the marital home.
Eventually, they got divorced. I think they used one lawyer. He gave her most everything because he had much greater earning potential and because much of what they had came from her medical settlement. She was upset, but he didn’t treat her badly - apart from the leaving part.
But self-protection is a thing. It’s permitted for everyone. There are no prizes given out at the end for the biggest martyr. This time on earth is it! He eventually saw that - at 30 or so - and walked away from marriage #1.
I wonder, if some of the conversations we had still echoed in his head at the end, or if those echoes from the past had been swept away by the flood of new memories so that the old ones didn’t matter any more.
I remember us talking about marriage and I asked him why he was married to the unhappy wife. “She puts up with my idiosyncrasies” he said “She puts up with me even though I am weird.” I could not believe it. I loved this boy because of his idiosyncrasies, because of who he was because not despite!
And I told him that much. “Lennie, people love you because of who you are, because of your idiosyncrasies not despite.”
Lisa loved his idiosyncrasies. I’m glad he found her. She loved him because of who he was. She must miss him so much.
I hope he lived the Lisa and Lennie life we all saw for them.
I hope that it was all sunshine and roses before he died at 54.
I hope that he was still in touch with the gay couple who kept borrowing bourbon from them over and over. (They’d replace the bottle after each party, then get it again during the next party. L&L were their gay neighbor’s late-night back-up liquor store next door.
Lennie and Lisa met with a group of us after they’d been married for a while at a conference. They sounded happy. She sounded extremely happy with her life and with him. He biggest regret was that she was too old to have children. He sounded happy, content, loved. I suspect that he would have liked more of an intellectual challenge at times, but he had that at work. So maybe he was not missing a thing.
I hope his life worked for him until he died at 54.
I can’t believe he’s gone.
I can’t believe he’s gone.