A rite of passage for late life Bob Stein
I grew up white, secular and middle class
in 1950s America.
That meant watching fireworks
on the Fourth of July,
trick-or-treating on Halloween
and putting presents
under a tree at Christmas.
But by the time
those traditions got to me,
they were hollow, commercial enterprises,
which just left me feeling empty.
So from a relatively young age,
I found myself looking to fill
an existential hole,
to connect with something
bigger than myself.
There hadn’t been a bar mitzvah
in my family in over a century,
so I thought I’d take a shot at that –
(Laughter)
only to be devastated
when my one encounter with the rabbi,
a really tall, godlike figure
with flowing white hair,
consisted of him asking me
for my middle name
so we could fill out a form.
Yep, that was it.
(Laughter)
So I got the fountain pen,
but I didn’t get the sense
of belonging and confidence
I was searching for.
Many years later,
I couldn’t bear the thought
of my son turning 13
without some kind of rite of passage.
So I came up with the idea
of a 13th birthday trip,
and I offered to take Murphy
anywhere in the world
that had meaning for him.
A budding young naturalist
who loved turtles,
he immediately settled on the Galapagos.
And when my daughter, Katie, turned 13,
she and I spent two weeks
at the bottom of the Grand Canyon,
where Katie learned for the first time
that she was powerful and brave.
Since then, my partner, Ashton,
and lots of our friends and relatives
have taken their kids
on 13th birthday trips,
with everyone finding it transformative
for both the child and the parent.
I wasn’t brought up saying grace.
But for the last 20 years,
we’ve been holding hands
before every meal.
It’s a beautiful bit of shared silence
that brings us all together in the moment.
Ashton tells everyone
to “pass the squeeze,”
while she assures them it’s not religious.
(Laughter)
So recently, when my family asked me
if I could please do something
with the more than 250 boxes of stuff
that I’ve collected over a lifetime,
my ritual-making impulse kicked in.
I started wondering if I could go further
than simple death cleaning.
“Death cleaning” is the Swedish term
for clearing out your closets,
your basement and your attic
before you die,
so your kids don’t have to do it later.
(Laughter)
I pictured my children
opening up box after box
and wondering why I’d kept
any of that stuff.
(Laughter)
And then I imagined them looking
at a specific picture
of me with a beautiful young woman,
and asking, “Who on earth
is that with Dad?”
(Laughter)
And that was the aha moment.
It wasn’t the things I’d saved
that were important;
it was the stories that went with them
that gave them meaning.
Could using the objects
to tell the stories
be the seed of a new ritual,
a rite of passage –
not for a 13-year-old,
but for someone much further
down the road?
So I started experimenting.
I got a few dozen things out of the boxes,
I put them about in a room,
and I invited people to come in
and ask me about anything
that they found interesting.
The results were terrific.
A good story became a launching pad
for a much deeper discussion,
in which my visitors made
meaningful connections
to their own lives.
Derrius [Quarles] asked me
about a Leonard Peltier T-shirt
that I’d worn a lot in the ’80s,
that, sadly, is still relevant today.
Our conversation moved quickly,
from a large number of political
prisoners in American jails,
to Derrius wondering about the legacy
of the Black Liberation
Movement of the ’60s,
and how his life might be different
if he’d come of age then,
instead of 30-odd years later.
At the end of our conversation,
Derrius asked me
if he could have the T-shirt.
And giving it to him felt
just about perfect.
As these conversations
established common ground,
especially across generations,
I realized I was opening a space
for people to talk about things
that really mattered to them.
And I started seeing myself
with a renewed sense of purpose –
not as the old guy on the way out,
but as someone with a role to play
going forward.
When I was growing up,
life ended for most people in their 70s.
People are living far longer now,
and for the first time in human history,
it’s common for four generations
to be living side by side.
I’m 71,
and with a bit of luck,
I’ve got 20 or 30 more years ahead of me.
Giving away my stuff now
and sharing it with friends, family,
and I hope strangers, too,
seems like the perfect way
to enter this next stage of my life.
Turns out to be just
what I was looking for:
a ritual that’s less about dying
and more about opening the door
to whatever comes next.
Thank you.
(Applause)
Onward!
(Applause)