From grief comes giving
(Photo courtesy of Rothman family)
Michael and Karen Rothman of Newton, who lost their son, have begun awarding college scholarship money to students, including
Vincent Nguyen of Plano, Texas, who grew up without his parents.
NEWTON - Sometimes Michael Rothman and his family try to focus on what they had, rather than what they lost. It doesn’t help.
For six months now, Michael, Karen, and their daughter, Julie, have been without Lex, their blond, brown-eyed 22-year-old son, who died after a brain aneurysm on a Tiverton, R.I., beach in January.
“He was an inspiration,’’ his father says.
Lex was sensitive, organized, and sure of his place. He wasn’t much for reading or politics, but he loved math, and he lived for sports. A point guard who gladly passed the ball despite his beautiful 3-pointer, Lex was utterly himself on the basketball court, always eager to make his teammates look good.
His sister was eager to get away to college in Michigan. Lex was the kind of kid who stays close to home, studying at Wheelock College to become a math teacher and coach.
The grief of being without him is “bottomless,’’ Michael says, his eyes reddening as he sits with his family on a recent morning. “It’ll never change.’’
But it’s not just Lex his parents miss. It’s all the things they used to give him, too: the education, the advice, the cozy house he would always come home to. It was all so satisfying. It gave them purpose.
A few months after Lex died, Michael decided that his family still had a lot to offer. All they needed was somebody to give it to.
What if these parents without a son looked for a son without parents?
At first, Karen was horrified: She worried her husband was trying to replace Lex. But Julie helped persuade her that this was a way forward, a way to avoid surrendering to grief.
“You make a decision to live or die,’’ Karen says.
And so the Iris-Samuel Rothman Scholarship was born. The Rothmans named it for their parents, not for Lex. They have more than enough reminders of him already.
The scholarship includes up to $10,000 in tuition and other assistance, but that’s not the main thing. In addition to the tuition help, the Rothmans want to be there for young men who might not have anybody else to turn to.
A few weeks ago, they met Vincent Nguyen, a 21-year-old Vietnamese immigrant from Plano, Texas. Raised by his grandmother after his parents split, the aspiring doctor was alone in the world and heading to Columbia University. The Rothmans were immediately struck by the personal essay in his online application.
Still, they were terrified he would remind them too much of Lex.
What they found when they picked up Vincent at Logan Airport was a young man who looked nothing like their son, someone whose life could not have been more different.
But from the very first, it was almost like they knew each other. Vincent needed the Rothmans, and they him.
“It had a value in itself, to take that energy and focus on Vincent, and to see that reflected in his eyes,’’ says Michael.
The Rothmans have given him $4,000 to help with his expenses, paid for his travel, and arranged to have his belongings shipped. They’re looking forward to taking him to Tiverton next summer.
For Vincent, it is about much more than the money. He is lonely, he says. He needs friends who care for him.
Now the Rothmans are in search of more Vincents, hoping to make a major difference in the lives of at least four more men.
Searching for words that might give his family comfort after Lex died, Michael found just one passage that made sense, by Helen Keller.
“So long as you can sweeten another’s pain, life is not in vain,’’ she wrote. “No one is so bereaved, so miserable, that he cannot find someone else to succor.’’
Yvonne Abraham is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at abraham@globe.com 