TheKellyWay

I didn’t actually know Kelly that well.  I didn’t know Kelly that long.  That did not stop Kelly from leaving an indelible impression on me that I will never forget.  While Kelly passed away a year ago, there has not been a day when I have not thought about her and how she spent her life simply bringing out the best in everyone else.

Among the moments that I think about most frequently took place last October 27th, her last day at work.  On that day, she found out she passed the New York bar, her Royals beat my Mets in game one of the World Series and the biography of Justice Ginsburg came out.  Knowing her love of Notorious RBG, I went to Barnes & Noble to pick up a copy for her and for her first year colleagues, Stephanie and Phil, not knowing that her lyrics were contained in an appendix.  When I handed her the book, she opened the book directly to the page containing her lyrics, without really looking.  I will never forget her wry expression when she showed me.

So much has been said and written about Kelly over the past year that I feel there is little more I can retrospectively say at this point.  Listening to Justice Tom’s remarks were surreal.  Kelly even made an impression on the court.

What I can confirm is that Kelly will live on in my heart and in the hearts of everyone at Duane Morris.  Every time we think about doing good for others, we will think of Kelly.  Every time we think we are having a bad day, we will think about Kelly to give us perspective.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention my affection and appreciation for Jimmie, Mark, Clay and the entire Cosby family.  Maybe Kelly even had something to do with Clay attending my other alma mater, Brooklyn Law School.  Maybe she didn’t realize that I would continue to stay in regular touch with her family, doing our part to make sure so many more learn about Kelly’s life and what mattered to her, so it can matter to everyone else.

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As I sit down to write this, it is November 9th, 2016.  Yesterday, our country held its first presidential election in over 50 years in which voters took to the polls without the full protections of the Voting Rights Act.  As I sit here, I have no idea to what extent that may or may not have affected what happened in the election.  But it feels appropriate to reflect on how it may have here, because it was the gutting of the Voting Rights Act that formed the backdrop to the summer that I met Kelly.

It was June 2013, and Kelly and I were just a few weeks into our time as legal interns at the Global Justice Center when U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg walked out to the bench, wearing her now-infamous embellished jabot reserved solely for disagreement, and delivered her scathing dissent in Shelby County v. Holder.  “Hubris is a fit word for today’s demolition of the VRA,” she admonished.  This, and other fiery one liners, about throwing away umbrellas during rainstorms and the past being prologue, caught the attention of lawyers-in-training like Kelly and me.  Justice Ginsburg was closing her record-breaking term of reading dissents from the bench, quickly her “Notorious” title, and progressives and advocates were paying attention.  Progressive millennials wrangled their anger in the way they do best and before we knew it, 80 year-old, 5′ 1″, Jewish grandmother RBG had exploded into an online pop culture phenomenon.  Shana, Kelly’s classmate at NYU, created her Notorious RBG tumblr and “Notorious RBG” t-shirts were being sold everywhere. Kelly and I, angry about what we fundamentally felt was the destruction of vital protections that progressives and advocates before us had worked so hard to achieve, each wanted one.

We agreed to wear our shirts to work on the same day.  Upon seeing Kelly and me at the office, Janet Benshoof, President of GJC, immediately suggested we parody a Notorious B.I.G. song to honor our revered Justice.  Kelly and I initially laughed at the suggestion but Janet doubled down.  “I’m serious.  Do it and I’ll send it to her. I have her address.”

Kelly, Mat, and I spent the next work day rewriting the lyrics to “Juicy.”  We then recorded the song and, along with the rest of the GJC staff, created a music video.  “I feel so goofy!” Kelly exclaimed in between takes.  She blushed and giggled at herself as she stretched out on our office couch that was draped in gold lamé for the occasion (still not sure how or why our boss Akila happened to have gold lamé handy).  But once the camera was rolling she shed her pride and belted out the chorus of our song.

“I love it!” Justice Ginsburg exclaimed in an email two months later.  “Crew really did their homework.” The video was now on Youtube and had accumulated thousands of views, though, in all likelihood, most were from my dad.

Kelly and I spent the next two years bonding over our love for RBG (and our evil feminist agenda in general.)  We sent each other articles, attended RBG events, and spent multiple happy hours gushing over our icon and the efforts of those like her, and discussing how much more work remained for equality and justice advocates.

In late October 2015, Kelly and I planned to attend the release party for Shana’s new book, “Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.”  A portion of our lyrics had been included in the book, and Kelly had just found out she passed the New York bar exam.  It was a day of good things. But also, Kelly was in the height of her radiation treatment, and she was tired.  I had told Kelly if she didn’t feel good she should stay home and get some rest.  But that was not an option for Kelly.  When Kelly arrived, I watched her cheer as Shana took the stage, rooting for her fellow progressive advocate and RBG fan.  She enthusiastically introduced me to her many NYU students classmates who were in attendance, and excitedly told a friend about the new immunotherapy treatment she was about to start that week.  Kelly fluttered with optimistic energy.  I watched her in awe.  Life was trying to kick Kelly’s ass and Kelly was kicking the shit out of it right back.  Despite all the time Kelly and I had spent discussing why she looked up to RBG—both as an advocate and as a cancer-survivor—as far as I was concerned, the hero in the room was Kelly.

The day before Kelly died, the dean of NYU law school visited Kelly in the hospital to personally deliver a hand-written letter from RBG herself.  “Thinking of my favorite rapper with appreciation and affection,” she wrote.  The photo of Kelly reading Justice Ginsburg’s words brought me to tears.  I knew how much that moment must have meant to Kelly, and my heart was bursting with pride and joy for her.

It is no secret that Kelly was passionate and firmly believed in the fundamental right to equality, and she was dogged in her determination to pursue this throughout her life.  But what truly made Kelly unique was the grace and love with which she approached her efforts.  Kelly was a compassionate champion, treating everyone around her with an unbelievable amount of civility and dignity, no matter who you were or what you believed.  No exceptions.  Kelly would fight you with kindness, and change your heart.  That takes a big person, but that’s who Kelly was.  When Kelly said she wanted to be a force for good in the world, she meant it.  She lived it.

Today, now almost a year since Kelly’s death, the day after an excruciating election that has left so many of us wondering where all of the efforts for equality stand, Justice Ginsburg walked out to the bench wearing her infamous “dissent” jabot.  The Supreme Court wasn’t scheduled to deliver any opinions today.

Kelly would know how to channel our disappointment and move forward in a such a way that we can be a force for good. But something tells me that in the meantime, Kelly is right here with us, very strongly dissenting too.

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In a world that revolves around preparing for the future, how do we learn to be in the moment?

21 years of education have now come down to 182 days.  182 days from now, I will add the most humbling, yet terrifying letters to my name…the infamous M.D.  I think it is safe to say that I am a pretty goal oriented person.  I would not have come this far without the years of obsessive planning, diligent studying, and tenacity.  However, I struggle with taking time to enjoy the smaller day to day moments around me.  But Kelly was able to do this with such grace under every circumstance.  She had her eye on the future but was always able to live in the present.  To master this perfect balance something I continue to strive for each day.

I always felt a special connection to Kelly because we both continued our education to pursue professional degrees.  She understood what it meant to make sacrifices for our careers.  And she was always there with plenty of words of wisdom when the stress of school was getting to be just a little too much.  I remember confiding in Kelly when I was originally waitlisted for medical school.  She comforted me through my disappointment but made sure to remind me to not worry so much about the future and focus on the present.  She told me to appreciate my successes thus far and just try to make the most of each day.  The rest will work itself out.  She said the little moments are what I will remember 20 years from now.  I know very well to never doubt Kelly, and here I am getting ready to graduate as a doctor.  Kelly has always been wise beyond her years.  She was able to learn to be in the moment as life was happening around her.  To have grasped such a concept and applied it to her own life is to be commended.

It is all too easy get caught up in trying to reach goals and get to the next step, that we forget to slow down and soak in the small moments that make up our lives.  Learning to be in the moment lets us live a purposeful life without regrets.  It allows us to clear our mind of trivial stresses and focus on our own well-being.  We are great at planning our lives, but we need to learn to actually live.  Years from now, I won’t remember the stress of studying for tests, but I will remember the very normal Sunday afternoon coffee date Kelly and I had in August of 2015- unknowingly the last time I would ever see my dear friend.

I hope we can all strive to actually live our lives rather than just plan them.  Take a moment to enjoy that warm cup of coffee in the morning before tackling the day.  Take a break from the “to do” lists for a day and do something fun for yourself.  Wake up on Saturday morning to watch the first snowfall of the year blanket the earth.  If we can live by Kelly’s virtues, we can have the same rich, fulfilling life she had.

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In August of 2015, Kelly wrote the blog post, “Life Isn’t Fair”.  In the post, she processed her melanoma diagnosis in the context of the privileges she had been afforded in the other areas of her life.

Much like Kelly, I have been afforded so much privilege. I have grown up white, upper-middle class, heterosexual, cis-gendered, able-bodied, Christian, and in the United States.  Life isn’t fair, but I am on the receiving end.  When Kelly died, it felt at first like that changed.  Something wasn’t fair, and this time I got the short end of the stick.  In the wake of her death, I sat with similar questions to what that Kelly posed on her blog.

“I’ve been extremely fortunate, privileged, had everything handed to me. I’ve never had to go through anything very difficult. Does that make this less fair, because I’m less equipped to handle adversity? Does it make it more fair because I’ve had everything else so easy?”

Even as my mind whirred with these thoughts, I had the wisdom Kelly shared just after that paragraph.  She knew that wrestling with how life is or isn’t fair wasn’t the right approach.

“Cancer isn’t fair. Neither is it fair that people, children and adults, are murdered for being black. Murdered for being trans. Murdered for being gay. Terrorized for no good reason because some privileged person has decided they are inexplicably less than human…Life isn’t fair, and to get caught up in the unfairness of my diagnosis is to ignore what happens around me every day.”

I have tried to apply that same sentiment in grief.  Losing Kelly has been hard. It’s still hard.  But in the year since Kelly’s death, I have been overwhelmed by the number of people around me that are also struggling with loss or the fear and sadness that come with a cancer diagnosis of a loved one.  I just had to start paying attention and caring more deeply for the people around me.

I recognized this first in the week after Kelly’s funeral.  I returned to a tutoring program I volunteer with weekly during the school year.  My tutee, Alex*, came to tutoring out of sorts. After some coaxing, she revealed that her cousin had been shot and killed.  As she found the words to share this with me, tears rolled down her cheeks.  Soon she stopped talking and we sat together while she cried.

I knew how to sit with Alex and feel the pain of loss that night.  Alex reminded me that I wasn’t alone in this experience.  But even in our mutual grief, there were stark differences in the losses we suffered.  Alex is a ten year-old, African American child.  Her cousin was murdered.  As I walk through the world with white skin, I will never know the pain and fear that Alex shared with me at tutoring that night.

It is not a coincidence that Alex and I have markedly different childhoods. African American children are more likely than white children to live in poverty and less likely to have a mother with a college degree.  These differences translate into real educational and health disparities.  Despite living in the same nation, African American and white children face drastically unequal realities—the same amount of effort does not yield the same opportunities.  That isn’t fair.

I don’t always act in a way that recognizes and works towards rectifying these discrepancies.  It is a goal I strive towards, to show compassion for the struggles of others. I am going to have to work at it each day.

Kelly’s words are on the bulletin board of my office.  For me, they are a prompt each morning to be more compassionate than I was the day before.  Her mission statement challenges us all to do the same.

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