April 10th - "So Little Time..."

Remembering My Friend Nick, and the Secret of Life He Figured Out.

Typical NYC pedestrian traffic.

Below is my first letter ever published on Letters from a Birmingham Boy.

I chose this to be my first post because of the impact Nick Porcelli had on me, on my life, and on the work I feel called to do in the world. Including, and perhaps especially, these letters.

So much of what I’ve written as of late has been about the big things — what’s happening in our society, how we’re coping with it, where we are in the grand arc of history, etc.

But the most important decisions we make are those that happen in the spaces. It’s who we choose to become as we live each day and as we encounter each person we meet. That’s our most important legacy. Not unlike how we saw with Amelia Boynton and Jim Clark, not to mention, Martin.

For me, both today and tomorrow are special — today, because it’s Nick’s birthday, and tomorrow, because it’s Mary’s — the grandmother who raised me. Both are gone, but on their special day, I light a candle, and every time I look at it, I offer up a prayer of thanks that I had them in my life.

Doing so always grounds me, once again, in what matters most. Perhaps hearing about my friend Nick will do the same for you.

So little time. Try to understand that I'm – trying to make a move just to stay in the game; I try to stay awake and remember my name. Oh, everybody's changing, and I don't feel the same. – Keane, Everybody’s Changing

Remember when we thought we never would survive? But now, neither one of us is breaking. – Roberta Flack, Making Love

As much as perhaps anyone I’ve ever met, Nick Porcelli epitomized diversity and all that’s great about it. I met Nick my third year in New York at a dinner party hosted by a friend from Columbia University. As my friend predicted, Nick and I had much in common, both with respect to life experiences and interests. It was one of those meets where instantly you’re old friends.

A combination of Jewish, Italian and Cuban heritage, with the good looks of all three, Nick was a striking figure. Women (and men) constantly flirted with him, and he graciously let them know that he was happily married. “But if I wasn’t…” he’d always add, with a wink that made them blush and sent them on their way, feeling a bit better about themselves. Nick grew up in Chicago’s foster care system and, at eighteen, was out on his own with nothing but his wits and determination to carry him.

And carry him, they did. Through night classes and college, through work as a hospital orderly during the day, and through a range of administration jobs that would ultimately land him as a chief administrator at one of the world’s most prestigious law firms. Nick and his wife would adopt his sister’s two children when they were little more than newborns, and together, they would shower their daughter and son with all the unconditional love and sense of security that Nick’s own growing up lacked.

When he and I got to be friends, he was living and working in NYC during the week and commuting back home to Chicago on weekends. He lived in a tiny (normal, by New York standards) studio apartment in Hell’s Kitchen that was warmly decorated and, every time I saw it, absolutely immaculate. Every suit hung the same direction and every shirt, tie and pair of shoes had its place.

He also never knew a stranger. I remember on one of his trips back from Chicago, he saw a woman who he thought looked like Roberta Flack seated on the plane. I’d always been a fan, having heard my Aunt Pat, only a decade older than me, listening to her music. But it was after watching the film, Making Love, and being stunned by her tender delivery of the theme song, that I started collecting all things Roberta.

Nick, remembering this, went over and asked this woman if she was Roberta, and when he found out she was, he told her, “I just wanted you to know that my friend loves you and still plays your music all the time.” He came back with an autograph that said, “To Rodney, I understand you’re one of my biggest fans. Thank you. Love, Roberta.”

Nick did everything with purpose. Though I was a couple inches taller, I had to work to keep up with his long strides as we wove our way through busy New York City pedestrian traffic, everyone in a hurry.

But then, suddenly, Nick would stop and have a conversation with the homeless veteran on the corner. He knew the man’s name and Nick, shined shoes and handkerchief in pocket, took a moment to acknowledge this man as a human being. “I’ll bring you a plate on my way back,” Nick would say, as we headed out to eat. And he always did.

Nick helped everyone, and he had a real soft spot for the elderly. His life in New York was like a Woody Allen film – full of wonderfully human, undeniably lovable characters; a brilliant intellectual who’d spent most his life in a wheelchair, a middle-aged woman bravely facing down a grave illness, a former Rockette who, though her glory days were behind her, was still a beauty, and so many others, of every ethnicity, gender, sexuality and age imaginable, from exceedingly wealthy to financially destitute.

On the floor of the apartment where I lived was a lovely elderly woman named Sylvia. Whenever she went out, even to the store, she was dressed impeccably. With her lace-trimmed dresses and waistcoat, her gloved hands and pillbox hat, she looked like she was heading out to have tea with Jackie Onassis.

Nick saw her out collecting cans one day and mentioned it to me. The next time he came to visit, he insisted that we put together a care package for her with, among other things, bath salts, chocolates, fresh fruit, a bouquet of roses, and $50 he put in an envelope. We arranged it all in a basket and left it secretly by her door.

As my friend, Nick believed in me unequivocally. He’d tell me, “You’re going to change the world, you know that?” and because he believed it, in that moment, I would. Over the years, I’d draw down on this trust more times than I can count. Nick would die suddenly and unexpectedly at just 42 years of age, in 2011, and like the jagged cut it was, the wound of his loss has been slow to heal. But I wouldn’t trade the opportunity to have known him for anything.

You know how we sometimes get stuck on an album, listening to it over and over? For him, that was Keane’s debut release, Hopes and Fears. I remember him playing it, on infinite loop, in his apartment. The fifth song on that album was Everybody’s Changing, and once when it was playing, he volunteered that it was his favorite song.

I never asked why and he never elaborated. I think, in part, because it felt like such a vulnerable admission, and partly because it made sense to me. Nick had been making moves to “stay in the game” his entire life, while at the same time, trying to stay awake and remember not just his own name, but those of everyone he’d meet.

Today, when I hear it, or even think of it, I cannot help but also think of my friend Nick. “So little time,” the singer sang; a sentiment that expresses so much of what comes to mind when I think of him – both how little time I’d have him in my life, and how cognizant he was of how little time any of us has.

So, Nick lived more fully, more deeply, into every single moment. He savored food and conversation and experiences. He took his family on vacation while he could. He extended his hand and walked this earth like every person – no matter how wealthy or poor – was his equal, and he, theirs. Nick savored life.

As a result, Nick’s favorite song has taken on a broader meaning; not just about his life, but all our lives. Increasingly, it reminds me of the reality of change – a truth that Nick’s own life had made him so aware of – and why he lived his life the way he did.

Everybody is changing. And if I carry within me one lesson learned from the privilege of having known Nick Porcelli and watching how he lived, it is this: for each of us, our highest and most sacred work is embracing those around us in two equally important ways – celebrating the person they’re in the process of becoming, and cherishing the person they’ve always been.

Happy Birthday, Nick! I can’t express how grateful I am to have known you.