Three days ago, out of the blue, I thought about an old friend, Steve, and wondered how he was doing. I googled him with the keywords “steven zucker jhu math” and was immediately hit by what I feared most: An obituary from the university announcing his death on September 13, 2019, one day after he turned 70.
With tears in my eyes, I read about his life story. Steve was first and foremost remembered as a brilliant mathematician. However, without even pretending to understand his mathematical work, I remembered Steve as a sincere, compassionate, music-loving and sometimes dry-humored friend, who helped me go through the darkest time of my life.
I met Steve in the university gym, where we struck a small talk from time to time. I complained to him how hard it was to find a good Asian restaurant in Baltimore and he offered to take me to a Thai restaurant he liked. From there we formed an interesting friendship, where I could talk about my experience as a foreign student trying to pursue a PhD in his second language and how frustrated the whole process could be. Steve listened carefully and offered his sympathy and advice.
Back then, my spoken English was quite bad so talking with Steve helped me practice and regain my confidence. At first, he was too polite to correct my grammatical errors or mispronunciations. Only after I told him that I would not be offended and he would be doing me a favor did he start to let me know how I could improve.
One day I told Steve that I was thinking about taking a course on introduction to classical music, his eyes lit up. He told me how much he enjoyed classical music personally and encouraged me to take the course. He would be happy to lend me his CDs, too. I took up his offer, visited his home and saw his piano, Hi-Fi equipments and a large library of classical music CDs. I asked him what he would recommend for someone who had never been interested in classical music before. He thought for a few minutes and played a recording of J.S. Bach’s Goldberg Variations. I was deeply moved and experienced the transcendent power of classical music for the first time.
From then on I would report to him what I learned in the course and asked what other works were worth listening to for a particular composer. He was always happy to give me his opinion, down to which particular recording he personally liked and why. Later we exchanged news for upcoming classical music performances around town and went to some concerts together. For example, I was very excited and invited Steve to join me when Chinese pianist Yundi Li gave a recital featuring Liszt’s Piano Sonata in B minor in Gilman Hall and, years later, performed with National Symphony Orchestra in DC featuring Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1. I remembered sitting in the front seat on the passenger side of Steve’s Honda Accord and we drove down the dreaded I-95 or B-W Parkway to Kennedy Center to catch the performance. It was a cool autumn evening.
The time I met Steve was also some of the darkest moments of my life. Working out in the gym, listening to classical music, talking to people were all part of my desperate effort to get rid of a severe depression, which had almost paralyzed me mentally and physically. After a while, I finally felt safe enough to tell Steve that I was severely depressed and thanked him for his companionship, which helped me a lot. He was not surprised. I then told him why I ended up in such a mess. To my surprise, he offered to tell me a similar story of his. To this day, I don’t know whether his story was true but I am completely sure that it made me realize that I wasn’t the most miserable person in the world; that people can and will overcome a seemingly helpless situation. It was a huge revelation for me and I am forever indebted to his kind words of empathy.
Time went by. I graduated, moved to Canada and started a happy family. I would occasionally send Steve a postcard when I traveled to a new place. He would send me postcards from Singapore, Kyoto or other places, bringing me chuckles with silly anecdotes.
In 2016, knowing that I had moved to Boston, he asked whether he could visit me on his way back from a conference in Amherst. Of course I was happy to meet him after so many years. However, when he arrived, I was both happy and worried. I had expected some aging but was surprised by how much he had aged. He was visibly feeble and didn’t eat much. I introduced him to my wife and daughter and found out the interesting fact that he shared birthday with my daughter.
That summer, I took my visiting sister and niece on a road trip from Boston all the way down to DC. On our way back, we stopped at Johns Hopkins University for a short visit. While I was giving them a tour of the campus and passed by Krieger Hall, I was suddenly struck by the memory of me knocking on Steve’s office, watching him sitting behind a pile of math books. I knocked on the door again; there he was, in his natural habitat. He smiled, happy about my surprise visit. When I was about to leave and shook his hand, little did I know that would be the last time I could do so.
I always attributed Steve’s childish look and demeanor to the fact that mathematics is a subject purely driven by curiosity. For someone to devote one’s life to such an endeavor, one has to be young at heart. That kind of playfulness might be the reason that despite the age difference between us, we somehow connected and formed a sincere friendship. I miss him dearly.
Rest in peace, Steve.
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