Emeriti Club Gathering and Awards Program
Kalamazoo College
Ralph Wellington ’68
October 7, 2023
It is a true honor to be standing here before you on this occasion and to have received the certificate along with John Grandin. My deep thanks to Donna Lambert and the Emeriti Committee for this unexpected moment.
It is also an honor that my much younger brother, also a K grad, delivered those very moving remarks. He is now seated next to his wife Cynthia, our sister, Annette, who also has her own K history, and her husband John. And to have Professor Don Flesche and Harold Decker, an honoree last year and a college basketball buddy, at the table is also an honor. I also look across the room and see several classmates and friends from early and later stages of my life. But I will try to get my trial lawyer face on and not become too emotional.
What to talk about for the allotted time was an interesting thing to mull on. When I asked my brother for any thoughts he might have, he said just say “Thank you”. You will all probably wish I had followed his advice. Even though John and I qualified for this honor in part because we graduated more than 50 years ago, that the committee felt we had done some things of merit in our long lives, and that this weekend is my 55th and his 60th class reunion, I decided to talk a bit about living in the present, not the past. William Faulkner’s view: “There is no was. There is only is.”
But before that focus, I do want to say how important K College has been to my life. As a boy from the little town of Three Rivers I came here hoping to continue to play basketball and baseball, which I did, and I wanted to be a physician. The science and math professors decided pretty promptly that I should explore a different road, giving me grades I had never seen before. Then Professor Flesche got me interested in a very different direction, and the K sophomore spring interim program led me to my working on Capitol Hill for local Congressman Edward Hutchinson. So many people I worked with there were lawyers and politicians so my focus did change. But I decided not to become a politician. Now back to living in the present.
Those of us here have had blessed lives or we would not be here. Not that we have not encountered trauma and tragedy. The blessings of my children, grandchildren, health at my age, pretty fascinating career, and so much else, does not make me overlook that my son Jeff, born to Judy and me while we were at K, and the father of my two wonderful grandsons, died 7 years ago. Do I miss him and have permanent sadness in my heart?– yes. But his wife and his sons moved on with their lives and we have always remained very close. At my age and especially after losing Jeff, I count every day more passionately as a blessing. And it is focusing on the present day and what we can do for others that I want to preach about for a few minutes. (My parents actually thought I would grow up and be a preacher because as a little boy I would stand up during church service and start talking to the congregation. But I chose the related career. Standing up and preaching as a trial and appellate lawyer.)
I am grateful that the K College experience pushed me toward a legal career. That career has been very interesting and broad all over the country, although always at the same Philadelphia based firm for 52 years. We didn’t earn as much as many others at large firms in part because the founders were committed to justice and public service, and so doing pro bono work for those in need was always part of the culture. Working with President Kennedy to found the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under the Law to fight for desegregation in the south was just one example. Many other things, but on to my topic.
While I am blessed with great family and had an interesting career and long term involvement with the College and other things, my blessing today is today. Will I have a great day tomorrow? I don’t know. As Steve Jobs observed: “If you live each day as it was your last, someday you’ll certainly be right.” I want to share a story about someone much younger than I who has reaffirmed focusing on the day we have. With two other colleagues I took on a pro bono criminal matter 5 years ago. With the Pennsylvania Innocence Project we fought in court and with the District Attorneys to recognize that a 19 year old black man, arrested and convicted of murder, and sentenced to life imprisonment without parole 35 years ago, was wrongly charged and convicted. After the many year battle finally, on June 9th of this year, we were at the prison with his mother (his daughter, nine months old when he was wrongly arrested, was overseas in the U.S. Navy) as LaFaye walked out as a 54-year old free man. He hugged his mother and us. And his frame of mind is so amazingly calm and grateful. He is not filled with anger and resentment, but with pleasure, peace and joy with each day he now has as a free man. He chooses not to look back but to count each day as a blessing and looks forward to the next one.
We can’t undo things we wish we hadn’t or do things we wish we had. And, especially relevant to LaFaye, is this quote from Robin Sharma: “Stop being a prisoner of your past. Become an architect of your future.”
At this stage of my life and the phasing out of my career, I especially count each day as a blessing, and try to find something of service I can do.
So, enough on my sermon. Do you want to stand for the prayer? (Just kidding!)