Skip to main content

In Remembrance

"As a young man he was able to stand up to just about the best that life can offer , which is not easy, and later he stood up with equal grace to just about the worst." -Herbert Warren Wind on Bobby Jones

Occasionally, we meet people that leave a mark.  It can happen in a few short moments or over a long period of time, but that mark becomes pronounced when it is real and meaningful.  That mark is often imperceptible until life events reveal its depth and breadth.  At which time, clarity emerges as to the impact that people can have in our lives.

I met Rok in the first days of our MBA program at IMD in 2005.  Our initial connection was his Slovenian background and the fact that I had visited his home country in 1998 when I studied abroad in Milan; we became fast friends.  This relationship deepened when we were lucky enough to work together in "G7", our first group in the program.  Deep relationships means something more than pleasantries and parties at IMD due to the intensive nature of the program.  After braving the (in)famous group dynamics work together in G7, I learned that Rok was truly special; his genuine enthusiasm for life and the people that surrounded him was extraordinary.  He was as gentle and thoughtful as the rolling yet bellowing cadence of his voice, and his smile was as infectious as it was a permanent fixture whenever we crossed paths.  Some of my best memories from IMD revolve around experiences we shared closely together - the integrative exercise, the MBA Olympics, and the summer trip he organized to Bovec after our class expedition to Bosnia.  Those memories continued after IMD, even though we lived continents apart, he in Geneva and me in the DC area.  He was an honored guest at my wedding in 2007, and I will never forget the daring road trip he made in the 2010 "snowmageddon" from Delaware to Maryland for an afternoon visit.

Perilous journey...

...Lasting friendship

Unfortunately, cancer cut short his journey in this life, took hold of him and put up an unfair fight.  He leaves behind a precious baby girl less than two years old and an amazing wife who has made us all feel part of their family, even when the difficult times would make most of us withdraw and face such struggles alone.  It took a long time for him to even share these struggles with me, such was his selflessness and focus on others.  I take comfort in the fact that all my memories with Rok are great ones, the type that define friendship and fellowship.  He would have no regrets anyways, it was always the moments we shared together, in the moment, that mattered.

Our last quality time spent together was in Geneva after our 5-year MBA reunion in September 2010.  He invited me to stay at his flat before I departed the next day.  We walked along the lake on an impending Sunday afternoon, his voice soothing and meditative against the backdrop of a brooding weather pattern moving across the sky.  The cancer was already present, but I would never know it; as usual, it was about the moment and the time we had together, his smile ever-present and glowing.  No doubt, the treasure of this memory and so many others will measure far beyond the too-brief period of time we were able to share together, and his mark is well-pronounced and palpable.  In remembrance of Rok.


>>> You can help fulfill Rok's wishes of providing educational opportunities for impoverished students from the former Yugoslavia by giving forward here, in lieu of flowers.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Little Bit of Proust

Somehow I started to read Proust. The blame goes to Alain de Botton , a writer whose witticisms deconstruct modern thinking and make intellectualism seem but a trifle and a whim. He wrote a book in 1997 called "How Proust Can Change Your Life" which distills the enigmatic French novelist into a self-help dispenser of pithy ideas. How clever I found Mr. de Botton to be when I dipped my toe into the vagaries of Proust; I picked up volume one of "In Search of Lost Time" and instantly fell into the deep end. What author dares to run sentences onward into the stratosphere that sometimes seemingly mellows behind the stars of a bright night, but never so much as an introspective person that wretches for the meaning of a simple thought, sometimes stumbling, but always emerging strongly as that same night in starry sky, almost an homage back to Van Gogh, whose rich paintings greatly represented the mood of a generation - and generations often afford a few mis-steps in l...
2 comments
Read more

Try Something New: 750 Words

If there is anything universally redeeming about writing, it is the ability to delve into the inner thoughts of one's own psyche and come back with perspective on feelings, motivations, and desires. In this way, journaling as the specific form of writing that provides this redemption can be a worthwhile pursuit. One might suppose that the internet world would offer various tools to make journaling simple, easy, and relatively painless, but that has not always been the case - until now. I came across this from Lifehacker, who was promoting the site back in March: 750words. The site is run by a former Amazon product manager who has an interest in journaling for the creative process and data visualization. Mash those things together, and you have an interesting site that is built around the premise that creative juices get flowing by consistently writing 3 pages worth of stuff on a daily basis, which translates to roughly 750 words. Logging in by using your Google or Facebook use...
2 comments
Read more

Netscape, We Hardly Knew Ye...

In 1995, I started using email. In my first college days, my friend Virge anointed me with a playful email handle - toddity. She never told me that your email address was somewhat permanent, and I spent the rest of my university days with an username that amused most who got a message from good, old Eudora. At that time, I used Netscape as my web browser. Fast forward almost 15 years. I moved on first to Internet Explorer (Microsoft had a monopolistic hand in it), and then to Firefox from which I am penning this blog entry. Somewhere along the way, Netscape was acquired by AOL and sent down the river on a slow obsolescence. Until next week, when Netscape will end up on the scrap heap with Prodigy, Compuserve, and Excite@Home. How much the internet has changed. I can wax poetically on blogs and social networks, but I can also remember messageboards, usenets, IM, forums, web 1.0, HTML, and the world wide web when www. was a foreign concept. The concept is still the same - connec...
2 comments
Read more