Fateful & Fierce March

Little had I anticipated that March 2018 would be a such a fateful and fierce month, with the loss of two great men in my life: March 2nd witnessed the passing of Robert (Bob) Reedy in his sleep in Dallas, while March 14th saw the death of Stephen Hawking.

To get to know Bob, it was a gradual process. At the beginning, Paul introduced him to me when he was describing his family members. Together with Paul, I was invited to attend his middle daughter's first wedding, which turned out to be an stormy event with eventual divorce and the subsequent departures of two grandmothers.

The following year, Paul and I were married. To congratulate us on our wedding, Bob took us, along with a pair of his younger children, bearing wedding gifts from Texas, to Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco. I was so moved by his sincerity and goodwill. Who, besides my own parents, would come all this way to honor us? Our relationship increased more dramatically after Nick’s arrival in the States in July 1997. He suggested Nick’s name, and painstakingly cultivated an immersive environment for Nick by inviting us to Dallas several summers in a row with the Hamills and the Daltons. That’s one of the reasons Nick could manage his first few years in the States so well, living a normal life, and then establishing his own family in later years.

Bob always struck me as a loving and proud husband, son, father, uncle and friend. I have been impressed with his love for his family by going all out for them, such as making his scrumptious brunches with famous "Bob Eggs" and fruit salads. At he same time, he held his firm standards by encouraging and welcoming the younger generations in their academic achievements and professional careers.

I was aware of physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking in an abstract way, since physics is not my field. Paul recommended him on many occasions, such as his works on the union of the general theory of relativity and quantum mechanics, his ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease), and his life after ALS. It is in the film The Theory of Everything that I grew to know Hawking more concretely. I was touched by his brilliance, perseverance, resilience and, most important of all, his sense of humor, which endeared him to people worldwide.

Unlike many celebrities, he reached out to people with his easygoing smile and speeches. He has made science their good friend, not formidable foe. Unlike some of us depressed from illness, Hawking managed, despite his wheelchair, to live a full and fulfilled life, which requires an iron will! To a great extent, his disabilities made him even more human.