Robert Abrams came into this world on January 4, 1926, with a west
wind. Not the kind that flips your umbrella back like on the streets of
New York where his parents, Essie & Samuel raised him. He whirled
through school and served his country in ways he never talked about. He
left the prying few dangling like that last preposition. As a biologist, he
thought he’d found heaven in his first job working in the Museum of
Natural History, but the internal politics brought him back to earth. Still,
he breezed by social norms and a heavy-handed Jewish mother to marry a
Sicilian, Catholic, opera singer, named Libora Geraci. He met her on a
blind date he only agreed to because his best friend's crush insisted on a
double. He was a good friend. He found Libora to be the most ‘authentic'
woman he’d ever met. After they married in 1951, he refused to work at
his father's box business in Brooklyn and moved his wife to the woods
beyond the hamlet of Glen Gardner, New Jersey where they built a
company of their own: Champlain Biological Services.
He wasn’t an only child, but the age difference made it seem so. He had a much older sister, Ruth from his mother’s first marriage. He kept close ties to his wife’s brother, Dick, and all Lib’s brothers and sisters and adopted Lib’s enormous extended Sicilian family here and in Sicily but it was the children of his sister and siblings-in-law who he held most dear. It created a couple of jealous parting of ways with the older relatives, but what child wouldn’t love Bob and his wife, Lib in their lives. They weren’t bound by the messy roles of parents. They made no demands. They listened and loved unconditionally. They were fun and fascinating. They talked about science and art, went to interesting plays and museums, and read wonderful books like The Outlook Fairy Book for Little People when the children were young.
Bob and Lib's love for each other wouldn’t make the Modern Love section
of the New York Times. Theirs was an old-fashioned love before
expectation and entitlement. It wasn’t even a death-do-you-part love. It
is and always will be a true forever love. He was so rooted in the biology
of our existence, he never questioned nature’s twists and turns that
caused an early decline in his wife’s health, and she was never phased by
his curmudgeon demeanor as his loving niece, Kathy Priolo called it. They
loved each other - period.
Their lives moved like autumn before the fall: colorful, never insistent or resistant. They had simple lives with a tight group of friends. They worked hard with care and honesty. They delivered. They traveled far but made time for those they loved even moving one niece, Antonia who is now a Judge, to her first apartment in NY to attend law school. They weren't perfect. They’d forget to pick the beans Lib's father planted for them, until the day he came to check on the garden. Lib would rush Bob out the door to accomplish the task, so her father wouldn’t be disappointed.
Libora passed away 20 years before Bob. Bob’s mind never dulled even after 92 years. Yes, he closed his eyes often, but that wasn’t because he was sleeping —he'd done this all through school, which he attended well into his 80s —making his way from the Windrows, the adult community where he became a fixture, to Princeton to audit courses in Italian and Cognitive Neuroscience to keep his mind active.
His eyes eventually degenerated as did his legs. His dear caregiver, named Comfort, stood by his side and became his eyes and legs. She and “Boss” maintained a lively and affectionate banter until his last moments. Judith dropped by most days to provide provocative discourse on the issues of the day and turned off the ever present classical music and radio programs of NPR to play books on tape from the Public Library (long live the Public Library) and the Association for the Blind. Steve was the only one meticulous (and patient) enough to do his shopping and odd jobs.
Bob left this world on January 6, 2018, as gently as he came in, on a late night breeze, his eyes closed, his mind calm, surrounded by Comfort, Judith and Antonia, but comforted by the love of all his nieces and nephews far and wide lifting him upward to join his one and only true love.
Their lives moved like autumn before the fall: colorful, never insistent or resistant. They had simple lives with a tight group of friends. They worked hard with care and honesty. They delivered. They traveled far but made time for those they loved even moving one niece, Antonia who is now a Judge, to her first apartment in NY to attend law school. They weren't perfect. They’d forget to pick the beans Lib's father planted for them, until the day he came to check on the garden. Lib would rush Bob out the door to accomplish the task, so her father wouldn’t be disappointed.
Libora passed away 20 years before Bob. Bob’s mind never dulled even after 92 years. Yes, he closed his eyes often, but that wasn’t because he was sleeping —he'd done this all through school, which he attended well into his 80s —making his way from the Windrows, the adult community where he became a fixture, to Princeton to audit courses in Italian and Cognitive Neuroscience to keep his mind active.
His eyes eventually degenerated as did his legs. His dear caregiver, named Comfort, stood by his side and became his eyes and legs. She and “Boss” maintained a lively and affectionate banter until his last moments. Judith dropped by most days to provide provocative discourse on the issues of the day and turned off the ever present classical music and radio programs of NPR to play books on tape from the Public Library (long live the Public Library) and the Association for the Blind. Steve was the only one meticulous (and patient) enough to do his shopping and odd jobs.
Bob left this world on January 6, 2018, as gently as he came in, on a late night breeze, his eyes closed, his mind calm, surrounded by Comfort, Judith and Antonia, but comforted by the love of all his nieces and nephews far and wide lifting him upward to join his one and only true love.
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