Early this
morning at
JFK airport, I saw a friend on a plane to
Singapore.
We'd only known he was leaving since yesterday-- he'd only known since the day before.
Leaving New York, never to come back, leaving the
Stern School of Business mid-semester, leaving
Goldman Sachs and
Salomon Smith Barney and
Lehman Brothers and
Credit Suisse and
Morgan Stanley interviews, all scheduled for next week. "Maybe I'll come back sometime as a
tourist.." he said.
Dropping out of school. His father was dying-- has been for some while.
We started packing up his apartment on
Lafeyette Street, but where do you start? Packing a year and a half of things that were so typical of a Stern student-- a flat panel monitor, those little cube
speakers, accumulated
Banana Republic clothes, a year's supply of
creatine.
Rugby uniforms.
Economics books.
Photos from our
Scholars trips to
Madrid, and
London. Pictures of
girls, pictures of
friends. From his service as a
commando in the
Singapore army.
Remnants of a life built in
New York, and also of one continued in
Singapore. Leaving, just like that..
never to return.
Most of us leave
New York sometime in our lives--- some of us plan it, most of us don't.
I always had a perfect little plan in my head, for my life, which encompasses the lives of my friends-- We've been told that if we study hard, work hard, and hold our
liquor, we're all going to be
ok. Get
good jobs, lead good lives, in
New York.
Update: 3.06.2000. His father's dead, and he's coming back to school.