The Write Stuff
by Joan Singer

I began playing violin at the age of 10, after hearing Beethoven’s Violin Concerto. Its ethereal beauty made me want to follow in Beethoven’s footsteps. At music camp when I was 15 and a shy violinist, I met Isaiah, a handsome 17 year-old baritone. We spent the week lost in music. By the end of the week, he could see that I had beauty and I knew he was brilliant. Following camp, he said “Let’s write.”

We kept in touch through the remainder of our high school years. We were omnivorous readers and he recommended books. He was fluent in French and many of our letters were written back and forth in French. We both loved beautiful music and art.

We came from very different Jewish backgrounds, Isaiah and I. Isaiah wrote me of his family, rich in Southern Jewish history and traditions. He wrote me about his cultured aunt, who introduced him to art. I wrote him about my Northern family, artistic and musical. My father was a Government lawyer and amateur artist. My mother, a former decorator, then community worker.

Isaiah went off to college, but suddenly hit a rut called Depression. We were fast correspondents through it. I assured him that he was brilliant, as I knew it from the first time I met him. He tried several colleges and finally succeeded in majoring in a field he loved, art history.

He won a prestigious scholarship to study abroad in the field of Jewish art history, later making a career as an art librarian. His philosophy was like Keats, “beauty is truth.”

While Isaiah followed his artistic third eye, I cultivated my musical ear. In college I pursued my music, playing in orchestras and string quartets, and later becoming a social worker. Later, I, too, succumbed to depression. Music became my passion and therapy as I played my violin in orchestras and quartets.

I was the first to marry. We each married for love, marrying different people. While I married my college sweetheart, he married his longtime gay partner.

Throughout life, I sent Isaiah music programs; he sent me art cards from all over Europe. When I developed a hearing impairment and could no longer play violin, he was sending me photographs through the internet which he had taken. They enriched my spirit. His photos encouraged me to see the beauty around me. I then developed a photo hobby and through his encouragement, I later began to display my photos in galleries.

When my son was born with disabilities, I joined disability organizations. And when in adolescence my son told me he was bisexual – later gay – I joined PFLAG. Isaiah met my son and became a close support.

My husband and I now sing with a Jewish religious chorale; our son sings also.

The correspondence with Isaiah has been psychologically sustaining. Today, neither Isaiah nor I suffer from depression. We have become brother and sister in God’s universe. Our friendship has lasted for 43 years. We’ve got the write stuff.

            *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

In his life, Isaiah has been a scholar involved in education, an AIDS activist, and a world traveler. He has a successful gay partnership which has lasted over 30 years. He continues to visit and correspond in French, Italian, German, and English with friends and relatives throughout the world. He and his partner have been instrumental in fostering the development and education of a poor African American child – now adult – from elementary school through graduation from Cornell and acquisition of her doctorate. Not only is he a model in life for having overcome his own obstacles, but he has been a support for me and countless others. For these reasons, I feel this mensch should receive special mention.