Our friend, John Levin, passed away on Sunday after almost 2 decades dealing with early onset dementia. I was honored to say a few words about the John we were privileged to know before the disease took him away from all of us. These are my words from the funeral.
John and Susan were our first friends who were like family.
In 1996, we were newlyweds living in Rockville, Maryland. We were just finding our way religiously and were trying to figure out where we planned to land. Susan got wind of the young couple walking two miles to shul and invited us to spend Rosh Hashanah with them.
And the rest, as they say, is history.
What we found when we crashed their Rosh Hashanah that year was incredible warmth, all-encompassing acceptance and joy. John and Susan were raising their three young children, Channah, Yami and Ari, in Potomac, Maryland. John was a big-time lawyer, but you would never guess it from his easy smile and his fun banter. We jumped right into the mix and felt completely embraced by the Levins, completely at home.
We spent countless meals with them, including Sukkot, Seder and our favorite meal together each year, Christmas Eve. John was brilliant – you could see his mind at work all the time. He realized early on that I loved books – but as we started to chat about our favorites, we soon realized that we had polar opposite tastes in books (his were very bad). And so it became an inside joke. “I’ve got a great new book for you, Romi” he’d typically say as we walked through the door. And then there would be a pause as he said, “Oh, never mind. I loved it so you’ll hate it.” And we’d get a good laugh out of our differences.
He rarely, if ever, talked about work. John spoke, instead, about everything – about the food he loved, the books he was reading, the current events he was listening to, the projects the kids were involved in. His eyes would twinkle with joy and his smile would radiate warmth and love. Being at their home was like second skin to us. They took Matan, Yehuda, and our dog Griffey in like they were their own.
Even as the years and the disease took their toll, one of the last things to go for John was his books. He would carry a book with him everywhere he went, even when he was no longer reading or understanding the words within. For a while, when I would see him at the park, he would open the book and speak about a sentence he liked, or he would just point to a passage. Eventually, he would just hold the book under his arm or show me the cover. But as long as he had that book at his side, I knew we still had John.
John was the sandek at Matan’s brit; he carried Eliav into his brit and in the picture that I have you can see the joy and the love as he looks down on this little bundle. I have a picture of the day the Levin’s made Aliyah. In it, John has his right arm raised in a fist of victory. He is smiling from ear to ear with his goofy Nefesh b’Nefesh hat and the sticker on his shirt that says Oleh. This is the John we knew. The John of joy, of intellect, of endless curiosity. Of love of family and love of chosen family. This, this is the John, the husband, father, grandfather and friend, we will remember and mourn.
