ILLUSTRATION: GARY SAWYER

Winter 2006 | At Last

Three Is On My Mind

By Stephen Subrin

ASK KIDS TO PICK A NUMBER between one and four, and keep it to themselves, and you’ll guess what it is. It will almost always be three, and they’ll think you’re Houdini. Anyway, the number three is on my mind. Perhaps it’s because I have three daughters. Or maybe, it’s because I just turned 69, which is, of course, divisible by three.   

Or it might be because someone asked me the other day about the senior partner of my old firm, Larry Levinson. Larry usually ended conversations with a client by telling them three things they had to do. For instance, if he was going to prepare an estate plan for Bill, it might have gone like this. “Now, Bill, first, I want you to go home and make me a complete list of all of your and your wife’s assets. And second, I need a list of any gifts, bequests or other unusual amounts you think you might be getting in the next few years.” I would then hold my breath, anxiously trying to guess how Larry would come up with a third request. “And Bill, remember to take your hat when you leave. It’s cold out there.”

In any event, as I sit writing, it’s the evening after Yom Kippur, a sobering Jewish holiday, in which we are called upon to remember deceased loved ones. I want to remember three of them and what they told me. I miss them.

Most of our graduates knew Don Berman. He tried to teach me to be brave in teaching, to keep experimenting with new things. Don’s desk, in fact his entire office, was a horrible mess. My colleagues Dan Givelber and David Phillips have followed suit. I once told Don that a cluttered desk was a sign of a cluttered mind. He asked me what I thought an empty desk signified.

Tom Smith was a dear friend from childhood. We went to school together in Akron, Ohio, from kindergarten through high school. We roomed together at college. Our families celebrated Thanksgiving together. Tom became chief of cardiology at the Brigham, and a chair at Harvard Medical School was recently named in his memory. He was the most disciplined person I knew, having not yet met my colleague and friend, Martha Davis. Tom, a distinguished doctor, researcher and administrator, was a terrific golfer. I am terrible at it, and have quit three times. A week before Tom died, I told him that I was going on a golf trip and would be taking lessons. Did he have any advice? His reply: “Lower your expectations.” Sure enough, life follows golf.

I was blessed with a wise, giving, loving father-in-law, Milt Abrahams. Milt practiced law in Omaha, Nebraska, for about 70 years. I quit the practice after seven. Milt was known for his devotion to worthy causes. Countless clients, friends and public organizations sought his wise counsel. A public library, library at the art museum and poverty law clinic are named after him. He read prodigiously. I once asked him a humble question, “Dad, what do you think the purpose of life is?” His immediate answer, “To help others help others.”

Don, Tom and Milt. Full minds, lower expectations, helping others. Not bad Yom Kippur trinities.

Steve Subrin is a faculty member who aspires to win the Triple Crown.