Of the two positive male role models I’ve had in my life, one is my step-father and the other was Brother Joe.
In many ways, I’ve come to think that my step-father helped lay the foundation of the person that I’ve eventually become and Brother Joe was the one that helped me begin to imagine what it was that I could build on it.
I first met Brother Joe in the Fall of 1989, when I transferred to Marist College from New York University and declared my intention to pursue a French degree. We met in his tiny campus apartment and I was distracted by the fact that books were literally everywhere in the cramped, tiny space.
He asked me why I left NYU to come to Marist, and he slapped the top of his bald head with both hands when I told him that I transferred to be with my then-girlfriend.
“Love!” he exclaimed, and then proceeded to spend the next hour talking about how love brought out both the best and worst aspects of human nature.
He then asked me why I wanted to study French and slapped the top of his head again when I told him that it was the best way I could think of to come up with an excuse for why I would need to study in Paris.
“Paris!” he exclaimed, and then proceeded to spend another hour talking about how his own studies took him there and to Bordeaux as his love of medieval studies took root as a young Brother.
Late in the night, he finally stood up, looked me up and down, then shook my hand. “Welcome to the French program,” he said. I stared down at the short, bald man whose eyes were nearly frantic with thought and intelligence behind them and said thank you.
The night concluded with a statement that I’ve always felt was the distillation of everything about Brother Joe: “Il faut s’agir, Lawrence. Il faut s’agir.”
The French program was very small at the time – there were only three full-time students in it in my class – so I got to know Brother Joe very well over the years. By turns fascinating and infuriating, he consistently demanded the best from each of his students and it was only years afterwards that I began to see why: it wasn’t to please him, but rather it was for our own benefit.
To Brother Joe, the true value of a college education wasn’t just to get a high-paying job, it was to learn how to think. He taught us how to impose structure on the way our minds organized knowledge and use that structure to express ourselves successfully and intelligently. It’s a lesson that I’ve used every day since, almost twenty years on.
Brother Joe helped me achieve my goal of studing in Paris, making it his personal mission to get both myself and then-girlfriend over to the Sorbonne to study French Literature at the feet of those he considered the masters. I think of my time in Paris literally every single day, and I have Brother Joe to thank for what I consider to be some of the best memories of my life.
In the time that we were in Paris, Brother Joe retired from teaching and the French program was passed onto others. As Brother Joe’s pursuit of “ma retraite” loomed large, personal issues in my own life began to overwhelm me and I eventually ended up turning my back on my time at Marist and the people I knew there once I graduated.
Life took me in directions I had not planned on following graduation, but as the years passed I found myself often thinking of Brother Joe and the near Yoda-like bits of wisdom he tried to impress upon us. For many years, Brother Joe was the only part of my time at Marist that I could think of without digging up old ghosts that I hadn’t yet developed the strength to face.
Occassionally, I’d Google Brother Joe to see what he was up to – an occassional interview about Marist Brothers history and his trip to China around the time I got married – but then he disappeared.
A few years ago, after a personal crisis I found myself in the position of reaching out to those I’ve harmed in my life and I searched high and low for Brother Joe but not even Google could find him. He was the only name on my list of people that I wanted to apologize to for either harming or disappointing them that I could not find and I felt great regret that I could not reach out to him.
About a month ago, I started to find myself thinking about Paris more often than usual. My desire to revisit the city builds every couple of years and my wife and I invariably find ourselves on a plane for another visit, and I mentioned to my wife that I was starting to get itchy to go back. She asked what brought it on this time and I said I didn’t know.
I thought about it for a couple weeks as I found myself returning over and over again to Paris in my mind when, one day on the train, the thought “Brother Joe!” burst into my mind. Deep in my heart I knew what I would find as I pulled out my Blackberry and Googled Brother Joe and I felt like I was hit by a ton of bricks as his obituary was the first search result.
Right there, on the train, I knew that I had to go visit him to say goodbye no matter where he was buried and decided that I would go the very next Saturday. I was expecting to have to drive up to Lawrence, MA (where he was from) and was surprised to find he was buried on the Marist Brothers Retreat in Esopus – more or less right across the river from Marist.
I got home, told my wife that I was taking Saturday for myself to say goodbye to Brother Joe, and she agreed without question as she had heard countless stories about him over the years.
Saturday was a beautiful day, sunny but neither too hot nor too cold, and I drove up to Esopus and hoped I wouldn’t have trouble finding where he was buried because the maps seemed to indicate the retreat grounds were rather large. I was also worried that I wouldn’t be allowed on the grounds, but figured that all I’d need to say was “Brother Joe” and I’d be given carte blanche.
The entrance was a large gate that reminded me of the one in front of the Vanderbilt Mansion in Hyde Park, and as I slowly drove through it and into the retreat I was struck by how pretty it was and how it reminded me greatly of an English garden in its layout. The single-lane road was curvy as it made it’s indirect way through the grounds and I started to worry about not being able to find Brother Joe because there were neither any signs indicating where the graveyard was nor was there a single soul that I could see to be able to ask. I drove on.
Marist Brothers cemetery - Brother Joe's grave is the one nearest to you on the far left-hand side.
The road eventually looped behind a large building and off to the side was a small lake with a fountain in the middle. As there was no traffic I slowed down to enjoy the view, and across the water and into the pine trees beyond I could make out low stone markers and found the graveyard. I drove to it, parked my car under the stand of pines, and as I started walking toward the graveyard I felt my chest seize when I first saw the fresh grave off to the one side. Even though I intellectually knew that Brother Joe was dead it wasn’t until I actually saw the grave that the undeniable emotional knowledge of his passing finally hit me. I thought I was having an asthma attack, but then realized that all I was doing was gasping as I was trying to stop myself from crying.
Brother Joe's temporary marker.
I looked around and hoped that no one was watching me cry as I walked to the grave and looked down at the little white sign with Brother Joe’s name on it on a peg at the head of the grave. The dirt was compacted from the rains the week before and started to crack as it dried out, and scattered around were some browning palm fronds and a couple blackened roses. For some reason, I was expecting more.
I stood there and stared down at the grave and found myself at a complete loss for words. I couldn’t remember a single thing I wanted to say to him even though I thought of a million things on the drive there. I then couldn’t decide if I was supposed to be quiet or just talk outloud to myself and hoped he could hear me. I started to feel self-conscious and looked around hoping no one was watching me.
Fuck it, I finally said to myself and started to talk.
Once I started talking the words began to flow and ended up standing there for over an hour as I explained what my childhood was like and why it made me the way I was when he knew me, how I’ve worked hard to overcome it, and all the things that happened in my life since we last spoke.
Most importantly, I thanked him for being a good friend and a great teacher.
I felt a pang of regret that I hadn’t the strength to tell him these things before, but I figured that it was better late than never.
The scribble in the dirt reads "Ici on ne parle que Francais" - my impromptu epitapth.
I said my goodbye and decided to walk around the small graveyard to burn off some nervous energy and just as I was starting to feel like I was abandoning my old friend alone in the woods I started to read the names on the headstones.
As I walked up and down the rows of graves the names began jumping out at me. One after another the history of Marist College was underfoot as I realized that nearly every single building on campus were namesakes of those in that small, quiet spot. I knew that Brother Joe was in the best possible place he could ever hope to be and left him with a happy heart.
My wife and I are waiting to adopt a child, and as I drove home thinking of my old friend I knew deep in my heart that my child would grow up hearing stories of Brother Joe and that one of the life lessons I would teach was “I’ll faut s’agir.”
I can’t think of a better memorial to Brother Joe than that.
