William M. “Willie” Maerov ’15

JUNE 8, 2018 EAST HAMPTON PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

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William M. “Willie” Maerov ’15

I speak this morning for St. Andrew’s, Willie’s second home, as we—his teachers and friends—join all of you in this congregation in our struggle to comprehend the enormity of Lance and Charlotte’s loss last weekend.

In our grief, we are quite humbly and quietly, here—grateful for the family’s embrace and kind invitation to join them in prayer, reflection, gratitude at such a sad time; eager to do something, say something to help you feel our collective love and strength today and always.

We need this time together—in person, in community, in congregation, in family—to understand the breath, scope, and resonance of Willie’s life. We need to explain to his father and his sister the extraordinary impact Willie had on our lives. We need to express how proud we were of him; his life, his vitality, his courage, his values, his grace. We need to understand the pain and devastation this tragedy has made us feel, and as we consider the love Willie and his grandparents inspired in our hearts, we need to find light, hope, and meaning in both our confusion and in our ever-expanding understanding of family. Amidst our impatient and restless questions about the place of random and cruel tragedy in our lives, we remember what we know today with certainty: the healing and revelatory power of love. Although we humans can’t control, comprehend, or understand the trajectory of our lives, we do have the infinite capacity to make love and the creation of a wide and all-encompassing family, our foundation, and guiding spirit. We have the freedom to feel, express, appreciate, and share a love that ultimately transcends the power of death and dissolution.

In light of Willie’s life, consider these two passages from Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Michael Curry:

“There’s power in love to help and heal when nothing else can.” “When love is the way, we actually treat each other, well, like family.”

These two passages capture Willie’s life and relationship with all of us. The very arrival of Willie at St. Andrew’s emerged, thanks to the friendship and love the Durkin and Krupinski family had for one another. As Charlie Durkin remembers it, Mary Durkin would always sit beside young Willie at dinner parties, marveling at his grace, maturity, intelligence, and kindness and at the same time understanding how receptive,

open, grateful, and pleased he was to be in the presence of a person who expressed such affection, affirmation, and kindness to him.

During a particularly complex time in Willie’s life, the Maerov family, the Krupinskis, and the Durkins sought to expand this community of love and concern for Charlie by selecting St. Andrew’s as his boarding school. Because Charlie Durkin was such a role model and exemplar for Willie, because Charlie himself modeled the kindness, intelligence, integrity, and vitality Willie admired, of course St. Andrew’s had to be his school.

Our role in Willie’s life was not only to provide a high quality and dynamic education for a passionate, curious, and eager scholar; we sought to create a second or third family to strengthen the work the Maerovs, Krupinskis, and Durkins had already done. We sought to express by word, deed, and kindness the same faith, attention, appreciation, and encouragement Mary gave to Willie during those wonderful dinners.

And as he felt the bridge between his own family, the Durkins, and St. Andrew’s, Willie understood that this very notion of expanding the circle of love and concern could be the defining paradigm of his life. He felt the warmth and spirit of great mentors and the friendship of a broad and diverse group of peers; he flourished, developed as a scholar, leader, actor, athlete, role model, and friend, all the while finding ways to express his gratitude and appreciation for everything that was happening around him.

Precisely because of the complexity and turbulence of his own life, Willie had a profound understanding of the miracles surrounding him—he never forgot the kindness, faith, and loyalty the Durkins expressed; he never forgot the patient and affirming expectation, hope, and love we expressed for him; and he made this natural expansion of love, empathy, and concern his abiding spirit in his life.

I began to put this paradigm together a couple of days ago as I read a beautiful letter of recommendation written for Willie in 2010 by Professor Brooke Kroeger, Director of the New York University Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute.

In her letter, she described first her friendship with Ben and Bonnie Krupinski and then shared her relationship with Willie which began when he was four years old and expressed profound and remarkably obsessive admiration for all Volkswagen Beetles but in particular her Volkswagen Beetle convertible. Willie at the time had developed a commitment to learning everything he could about the Beetle. Professor Kroeger wrote: “He knew the function of every button and switch. He could describe every piece of equipment under the hood. He knew every offered exterior and interior color combination and all the possible options and accessories.” Once or twice every summer, for a number of years, the Professor would respond to his reminders and entreaties to take Willie for a ride in the car. I think we can all imagine Willie sitting in that convertible, taking it all in. But what prompted her letter years later to St. Andrew’s was her appreciation for the depth and consistency and longevity of Willie’s gratitude. Whenever she saw Willie in later years, she felt the warmth, appreciation, and kindness of his spirit. She wrote:

“Willie’s prodigious ability to embrace and explore a passionate interest and his enduring appreciation of the small role I was able to play in furthering that interest, in a relationship he sought out and created as a very little boy—still stands out for me as remarkable.”

I felt this profound spirit of appreciation and gratitude when I met Willie in New York City this past April. He was happy, fulfilled, and engaged in his work at Georgetown, thrilled to be with fellow St. Andreans, and most of all eager to quietly thank me for the time we had shared together at St. Andrew’s. It struck me that night and again over the last week that no student with whom I have worked had the ability to express kindness, regard, and gratitude more powerfully and genuinely than Willie. And the expression came not only through words, but in the light in his eyes and the generosity of his presence, clearly the same gaze he shared with Mary Durkin years and years ago.

There was something so happy, so content, so fulfilled in his soul that evening, and even as he expressed delight in his present and future, he wanted to remember and thank St. Andrew’s for the role we played in helping him to this stage of his life. He was telling me that night that love had healed him; he was telling me that the love of his family, the love of his grandparents, the love of the Durkins, and the love of all of you gave him hope, strength, and courage. He was telling me that it was his turn to widen the circle and definition of family.

But of course, he had perfected the art of creating family wherever he was in his life. His St. Andrew’s roommate and close friend Grayson Ahl described the texts from Willie checking in on him whenever they had not been in touch: Grayson wrote: “I have yet to meet anyone as caring and compassionate as Willie.”

In his beautiful life, Willie succeeded in this magical and eternal expression of grace and fellowship. He understood that the very goodness and promise of life emerge when we widen our circle of care, when we take time to express gratitude, when we live in honor of the people and institutions that bring out the best in us.

When love is the way, we actually treat each other, well, like family.