Finite Horizons

Almost every year from 1997 to 2017, I would have been in the US right now, visiting my brother. The timing worked out well because I would stop by on my way across to the NeurIPS conference, typically held in Vancouver at this time. I have memories of go-karting, drinking in hot tubs and even jumping out of a planes. Mark was my more adventurous older brother. Today would have been his 54th birthday. He died in February 2018 at the age of 47.

Two nights ago I gave the Bennett Public Policy lecture, at the dinner which followed one of my colleagues remarked that he’d heard David Runciman suggest that people’s perspectives are molded by world the events that occur when they are around 20 years old. It was a great way to start a table conversation, so I didn’t vocalize the thought that came to me. Close expereince of death is the formative experience that came to my mind. Why? Because when I was 20 I had a worldly and adventurous older brother. A brother who was consumed by concern for the underdog and a passion to live a life that was different every day.

Together we’d watched our father die in 2013, and I’d heard my father’s unfounded regrets as he pondered what he had done and what he might have done differently. He spoke of his pride watching Mark in court. Because Mark had become a trial lawyer, not just any run-of-the-mill corporate lawyer. More like the protagonist in a John Grisham novel. His cases were those that needed someone to step up. He had many successes, but I included his favourite in Chapter 6. In 2005 Therman Brown was pistol whipped after a traffic stop for running a read light, there was no video evidence, the case seemed unwinnable, but Mark took it on and a federal court awarded $1.5 damages to Therman.

Report from 2011 on the Elizabeth police brutality case where Mark represented Therman.

Today I should be in a hot tub sharing a whisky with my brother. His daughters and his wife should be celebrating another year of his life. His partner and him should be celebrating seven years of their co-founded law firm. Instead each of us misses him. But we are also motivated by a memory of him and what he stood for. And each of us tries in our own way to live up to that memory and deliver on his ideals. Close contact with death changes people. And although when I look at my nieces I always see a deep sadness there, I also see a deep purpose, one that is inspired by their father.

When we last came together for dinner in New York in September I could see my brother within them. His life and ideas transcend him, pervade them and the sense of purpose with which they lead their lives.

This is a sad story, but it’s also a human story.