But, no offense to the company that gathered, it was a pleasure we could have done without: We would rather have Eric and Marie still in our lives. We especially feel for Dick and David in the loss of their spouses.
The Boston Globe's Legacy.com Web site has some marvelous stories about Eric submitted by friends. Dick is planning to publish a book with all of the family and friends' remembrances and some photos of Eric, but in the meantime here is Karl's remembrance of Eric that he delivered at the memorial service.
The Best Man: A Remembrance of Eric W. Kurtz
February 20, 2009
My brother Eric was the best man in at least six weddings that I know of, and probably more that I don't know about. Two of them were my own. This is amazing: How many of us are asked to be best man at even one wedding?
This remarkable fact about Eric leads me to my theme for the day: What were qualities that made us want him as our best man?
First, he had a great capacity for friendship. He had many and varied friends. Just look around this sanctuary, filled to standing room only, at the diversity of people who are here. Many of these friendships were deep and long-lasting. One of his earliest and best friends in high school, Jim Ellis, wanted to be here today but could not because of illness. But there are people here who knew him in college more than 50 years ago. And there are lots of people here who have only gotten to know him in the last year through the Harvard Institute for Lifelong Learning. Among other things, all of these friendships meant that he had a lot of best man opportunities.
Second, he was clever and witty. In fact he loved the word "clever"—he used it a lot and admired clever people and things. This quality meant that he wrote great wedding toasts, perhaps the single most important qualification for a best man, save for not losing the ring.
As an aside, the single most agile, apt, alliterative toast that I have ever heard was not written by Eric but rather delivered in his honor at his own wedding to Janet by a cousin of Janet's. It ended with "...a toast to the cleverness of a Kurtz to connive to k-now a Knoop."
Third, he was a bit of a Renaissance man. There wasn't any pursuit of the mind that he couldn't do well. In many ways the word "curiosity" sums him up—he was intellectually curious about everything. He was a man of taste and discernment. But he applied his agile mind, curiosity and good taste only to the things that mattered to him. For the most part, his interests did not extend to the popular in American life. He loved to share his enthusiasms with other people. He had an enormous appetite for life: for love, for music, for travel. (A friend who recently traveled with him said to me just before this service, "He traveled with gusto.") Not to mention his appetite for food—both the cooking and the eating of it. He could be a bon vivant, capable of lighting up a party.
Despite his capacity for extroversion, the life of his internal mind was very important to him. I remember one time riding in the back seat of a car with Eric and our father. There was lively conversation in the car, but Eric was off in a world of his own. After a time, Dad asked, "Eric, what are you thinking about?" "I'm meditating on Burke's The Sublime and the Beautiful," he replied.
Fourth, despite his skills and talents, Eric was a man of personal modesty. One of his flaws may have been that he was too often sure that he was right, but he was neither vain nor vainglorious. Dapper and dashing were not words that ever applied to him. He cared nothing for fashion. What does this quality have to do with being a best man? Well, for one thing his modesty and, if I may say it, his frumpiness meant that he never outshone the bride and groom.
Fifth, Eric had a large capacity for family, probably more so than anyone else in my sometimes dysfunctional family. In my conflicts with my parents or my brothers, he was the one who always counseled me to hang in and to forgive. He was often the spokesperson for my brothers and me in both big things and small. In the difficult transitions in my life he was accepting and non-judgmental. I particularly remember how welcoming he was to my then not-yet wife Janet when she came into our family at a difficult time (one that is too reminiscent of this one). Janet treasures the memory of how helpful Eric was to her he was when she arrived in Cambridge for her year of graduate school at Harvard.
Sixth, he was a nurturing person. Eric was 10 years older than I, and when I was born he took an intense interest in me. He took care of me while my mother took care of the rest of the family. My memories of this are not conscious ones because he had gone to college by the time I was six and starting to remember things. But his care-giving to me established a deep and lifelong bond between us. We were brothers, but he was also a third parent to me. Eric's children also benefited from his nurturing qualities, as I'm sure did so many of his friends who are gathered here today.
From this summary of the things I admired about Eric, I think you can get a flavor as to why so many of us asked him to be the best man in our weddings. But taking all of these qualities together, it seems to me that Eric was, quite simply, a "best man" in the broader sense of the word, without reference to anything having to do with weddings.
I miss him deeply and will continue to do so for the rest of my life.
