For Josh Wallman

This is the remembrance of Josh that I presented at the gathering on March 9th at the Harvard Club:

This story like most NY stories starts out simply but doesn’t end that way.  On February 2, 1994 I met a chick and fell in love.  As a part of a City College research career scholarship, I was asked to work in a biomedical science laboratory.  I was directed to Josh Wallman’s lab as a possibility, and Josh proceeded to introduce me, an avid animal lover, to chick #2396.  While I was falling deep, stroking the chick’s down and watching it fall asleep in my palm, I can vaguely recall Josh in the background explaining something about myopia and lenses and using big words like “emmetropization”.  Emmetropi-what?  I remember that he was so clearly excited about the topic and that I was so clearly excited about chick 2396 wondering how I was going to be able to put it in my pocket and take it home.  A prior Russian language and Soviet studies major, I thought that this research thing maybe wasn’t half bad if I could work with the chicks and possibly learn a thing or two about science.  This was the grossest underestimation of what was to be.  What I gained from my experience from Josh’s lab and from Josh was so much more. 

As I reflect on my almost 20 years of friendship with Josh, two important lessons of many stand out.  The first is that science is a gift that allows us to communicate our thoughts and ideas and that also provides a space for nurturing others both personally and professionally.  Josh was a brilliant scientist and strove for great science with creativity, love, passion and exacting standards. He also easily recognized talent and cultivated it with the same creativity, love and passion.  The second lesson, perhaps of even greater importance, is that it is the unlikely relationship that yields unusual learning and growth.  An individual can have an unbelievable impact on your life, completely altering its trajectory.  It might be that one would reach the same endpoint but the quality and breadth of that experience makes an indelible mark on both people.  Sometimes that individual is exactly who you need at that particular moment in time. Josh was who I needed when I was at City College as I was redefining my career and life goals. 

My mother preached that academics was the key to success.  For me, Josh provided the door.  When I got into medical school, we celebrated.  When our paper was published, we found and ate the most expensive hamburger in the city of New York.  When I published my first paper in a cardiovascular journal, my first phone call was to Josh and when I got my first NIH grant, Josh was as happy as I was.  We both knew that my successes, past, present and future belong to not only me but to him as well.

I was blessed that our relationship was never stagnant, evolving from mentor/mentee to colleague and friend.  I was blessed that I could provide in at least a small measure some degree of knowledge, understanding and comfort to him in the latter years when he had provided me with so much more along our journey. And blessed to see him in love.

Sadness fills me when I think of his passing yet never overwhelms me because it is so difficult to think of Josh without a smile coming to my face. And I know that you know what I mean.  My memories: Rushing by cab down to the only post office open until midnight so that we could get a submission out on time, nearly missing almost every train that I have ever taken with him, my trying to convince him to go into real estate with me or his trying to convince me to eat something that God never intended for anyone to eat.  And most notably, Kim and I trying to teach him how to do the electric slide during our wedding reception.  I wish that I had had a videographer. 

 I loved this man.  Truly, deeply, honestly and fiercely.  He was my friend.  He was my family.  And I like everyone here will miss him greatly.

Rhondalyn McLean, M.D.