Dear Friends,
I appreciate your comment on my post about losing Boris Albinder. Because there is no way to respond privately to your post, I will respond publicly here, and hope you will excuse me:
First, please accept my condolences for the loss of Boris. There is no way I can imagine your pain, and perhaps it is better to keep my thoughts to myself rather than to have an opinion about something that is so tragic and so personal. Even a well-intentioned homage may be inappropriate.
Boris was one of my favorite students, and his death has been very difficult for me. I did not know him well, but even a simple acquaintanceship was sufficient to see his goodness and strength of character. That he died coming to a friend's aid is the only bright spot in this grief.
As you noted I made some factual mistakes in the piece I wrote: I must have mistaken the address for Third St and Geary and thought of the Tenderloin--I imagined they might be going to that Indian restaurant there that's so good. But yes, like you I would never have imagined Boris driving around the Tenderloin looking for trouble!
And sorry about the T Shirt; I was thinking of something else, and imagined the connection to the lab.
Finally, about sympathizing with his attacker: I will admit I was surprised that the article in the newspaper gave so much space to a biography of the person who killed Boris. I felt it was insensitive and inappropriate.
Having said that, I think it is naive to imagine that the Cambodian genocide would not have an impact even today. The two Cambodians I have known were defined by it; they grew up in refugee camps. They were kind and peaceful, as people can be, even though they have experienced violent conditions.
However, almost always a vicious person has had a terrible childhood, and the point I was hoping to make was that violence and anger propagate and move in cycles. Stopping those cycles of anger and violence takes place inside each person's heart, first and foremost. This is not to say we should forget, or even forgive. But when our pain and grief is replaced by anger, we do harm to the world, and we harm ourselves.
This has been my personal experience with the deaths and misfortunes of my own life. It is extremely difficult to just feel the pain--anger seems so easy and right. That is what I work on as I think about your son. I cannot express how sorry I am that he has been taken from you, and from the world.
Your Respectfully.
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2 comments:
Hello,
I'm Boris Albinder's aunt, his deceased father's younger sister. Boris was like a little brother to me, like a child, my friend and my soulmate. I won't go into explanation of how devastated we all are... Please keep your posting up until Helen and Vadim read it. They deserve to see it....
A question - what did you teach Boris? Where?
Tatyana Albinder.
Dear Tatyana,
I worked in the same lab as Bella, Boris' grandmother (your mother?). After I finshed there (I was a graduate student) I worked as a tutor, and Bella asked if I would work with him--I think we did math or science together--when he was a sophomore at St Ignatius.
I didn't know Boris much beyond that, but he was clearly such a kind and special person that it was very easy to be fond of him--and very easy to be very sad at his death. In the original piece I wrote, which you might have seen, I described dreams and fears and a general sense of discord. It's been hard enough for me; I can barely imagine what it must be like for people close to him.
I would hope, knowing how sensitive we can become as a result of such loss, that you and his other family members will be very gentle and kind with each other, and with yourselves most of all. Please give my love to Bella.
If you would like to write me a direct email you are always welcome to do so: dgarigan [at} gmail.com
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