Serge

Serge was easily over six feet tall, his father being a Russian colonel, his mother Korean.

We were in high school together. Serge went off to study government at Yale, as did I at Cornell, and he had been accepted to law school. Apparently, he had died in an automobile accident; I heard he swerved to avoid a deer, which was definitely in keeping with his character. The news came to me from a friend in broadcasting, who had tracked me by calling my mother.

Serge had been a student radical in the 1970’s, an idealist. He and my sister, who studied philosophy and religion, would attend political demonstrations together and end up in jail as peaceful protesters. My highly traditional parents were horrified to see her on television news when, on one occasion, the two of them drove to Ohio for a commemoration of the Kent State killings.

After our youthful escape from Oklahoma to the East Coast, my sister at Barnard and I at Cornell would visit Serge at Yale. During one overnight stay in his dorm suite, I had lost my wire-rimmed glasses, and she had swiped his flannel shirt; Serge had told her to keep it, which was definitely a sign of affection.

"You know," he once said to her, "I think one day you should be my old lady."

We had always expected him to show up at our doorstep—like me, he is the sort to appear unexpectedly, much to everyone’s delight—though he would be scraggly and carrying a knapsack. When he hadn’t through the years, my sister had wondered why. After I told her, she then knew, and we both cried.