MY SON, ALEX, WOULD BE 43 TODAY. HE DIED BEFORE HE WAS 13.

When Alex was three years old he memorized the Star Spangled Banner from watching a TV station sign-on early in the mornings, before we got up. He knew the sounds but didn’t understand all the words — he thought “bursting in air” was “fursting in air”.
When Alex was eight years old his mother left us and married an Italian. She moved to Rome. Alex flew TWA to Rome three times a year and became one of the youngest frequent fliers.
When Alex was nine years old he used one of the first computers, his Commodore 64 with Prodigy, one of the first ISPs, to make airline and hotel reservations for a trip to Washington, D.C. where I argued a case before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. After oral argument he said, “I don’t think they agreed with you, Daddy.” Right, again.
When Alex was eleven years old he co-founded and edited a school newspaper for the fifth grade at the Rye Country Day School. That summer he had the lead role in a summer camp production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s “The Mikado” memorizing his part in the complex libretto flawlessly.
When Alex was twelve years old he went to a different summer camp. On visiting day I found him unable to breathe naturally. He couldn’t walk up a slight hill. The camp nurse said he had a bad cold. His counselor said he kept the other kids up at night with constant coughing. I took him to the East Stroudsburg Hospital where the admitting nurse found that he had a collapsed lung using her stethoscope. The ER doctor said he should be admitted. Against Medical Advice I took him back to camp, packed his things and took him home. His pediatrician thought he had pneumonia until fluid extracted from his lungs showed cancer cells present. The CT-scan disclosed a massive tumor in his chest.
Alex had two open chest operations and numerous chemotherapies. They worked at first; then they didn’t. When everything stopped working we took him to unconventional treatment centers, one in Santa Barbara. As he deteriorated we had a hospital bed set up in the living room. When he couldn’t eat we had a feeding tube inserted. When he couldn’t stand the pain we administered morphine. When the cancer metastasized and entered his bones we refused further treatment. Enough was enough. He died on January 19, 1988 before reaching thirteen.
After Alex died I started The Alex Marrow Children’s Fund and had it approved as a charity by the IRS. During many hospitalizations, admissions and outpatient chemotherapy sessions, we learned what should be obvious; how humiliating medical procedures are for very sick children. They lose everything. They are in pain. They are tired all the time. They are bored. They no longer have any independence — they are injected, medicated, examined, anesthetized, cut open, sewn shut, on-and-on. Once a doctor took a bone marrow sample from Alex’s by forcing a gigantic needle into his thigh bone with only local anesthesia which did little to stop the pain.
Alex had an Apple-2C computer by the time he got sick, and we got permission for him to use it in the hospital. The computer gave him some comfort, relief from boredom, a slight sense of control and independence. I used that knowledge to define the mission of The Alex Marrow Children’s Fund; to buy computers and electronic devices for hospitalized children with serious diseases, whose parents couldn’t afford such things. We distribute them on request to the Children’s Hospital at Montefiore.

Maybe you want to know more about Alex. When he was three we had my law partner and his wife for dinner. Alex knew Leo Salon was smart and asked him question after question, “Why this?” “Why that?” “Why the other thing?” Finally, Leo asked Alex why he asked so many questions. Alex thought for a moment and said, “Because I don’t know everything yet.”

Alex loved to read. Isaac Asimov was his favorite author. A friend had Asimov write a letter to Alex while he was sick.

Alex loved cats and was enthralled with the Broadway show. He knew every word of every song by heart and would sing along with our cassette tape. He got me to take him twice. The first time I couldn’t understand a thing. Then I read the poems by T. S. Eliot in “Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats” and finally understood Alex’s fascination. My favorite line is about the Jellicle Cat who is on the wrong side of every door.

Before Alex got sick my mother took him to the local animal shelter and they adopted a calico cat we called Cali who lived with me long after Alex died. Cali was a kitten and developed a loving relationship with Max, our gentle half golden retriever half something else. Some mornings I would find them asleep together, cuddling. Alex and Cali had their own love affair. When Cali wasn’t hunting or sleeping with Max she would curl up on the covers near Alex’s feet. This was a comfort for Alex when he was sick and in bed a lot.

Alex was a graceful runner. He took long loping strides with speed and balance, but he didn’t like sports much. I thought having a son would mean having a kid to play catch with, but when I asked Alex, “Do you want to have a catch?” he would usually say, “Do you?” or, “Not really.” He would rather read or be on the computer. Alex wrote computer code for his first computer, the Commodore 64 from Radio Shack. It ran on cassette tapes.

For a kid he had a great deal of compassion for people who were victims of misfortune; especially other children who were poor, hungry, sick or homeless. It made me wonder where compassion comes from.

As he grew older Alex became normally shy but when he was three or four he would just talk to people. He was good looking and spoke clearly, so it didn’t seem to offend people when he approached them in restaurants and started conversations.

He was my mother’s favorite. When Alex’s mother left us I had a full time nanny, but my mother helped almost every day. After her bridge games she came to our house every afternoon until I got home from my office.

Considering that he was a nerdy bookworm, Alex had lots of friends and was not bullied on at school. There was something quietly mature about him that seemed to impress the other kids. I tried to catch this quality about him when I chose the inscription for his grave stone, “He Caste a Bright but Gentle Light.”

I apparently appeared calm and dignified at Alex’s funeral, at least that’s what I was told. For the first ten years after he died I would visit his grave weekly, sometimes completing the 25 mile round trip by bicycle — using the bike we bought for Alex in 1987 while he was in treatment. I still ride it. The visits tapered off but I still go there often and bend or kneel or sit down near Alex and my parents who are buried beside him. It’s comforting to think that he’s near them.

I probably didn’t seem very dignified a few weeks after Alex died when the enormity of this void in my life crashed in on me. I sat on the grass near his grave and screeched in pain and anger. Nothing helps.

Grief that starts as pain and anger becomes a softly throbbing emptiness. It has become a blessing because it is a monument to my love which is not permanent — it will die with me — but as long as I live my grief will live with me, within me, as Alex lives within me. In a sense he is not dead and will not die until I do, when we die together.