If you have read any of the many letters to the editor or oped pieces by Jerome M. Becker that have been published in this paper over the last 18 years, you have gotten a glimpse of my husband, Jerry, and you will have an idea of his personality: witty, wide-ranging, engaged and, at times, certainly challenging.
I am deeply sad to share that he is very ill after an extremely short and hotly contested battle with cancer.
Jerry loved writing for the Herald more than almost anything except his dogs, Jumbo and Jynx. I can’t count how many times I saw him hunched over his computer, writing and rewriting a column or letter.
Sometimes they were based on his experiences as a former judge, other times local issues, national issues or just his idea of humor. I don’t think it would be too strong to say that he courted controversary and loved playing the devil’s advocate.
But he also had a soft side and a huge heart for his adopted home of 27 years, Bucks County, Pa.
In his honor, I am moved to share this beautifully written piece by Henry Van Dyke:
“I am standing on the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength. I stand and watch her until at length she is only a ribbon of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.
“There! She’s gone! But someone at my side says, ‘Gone where?’ From our sight, that’s all. She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left our side; and just as able to bear her load of living freight to the place of destination. Her diminished size is in us, not in her.
“Just at the moment when you say, ‘There! She’s gone!’ other voices are ready to take up the glad shout: ‘There she comes!’
“And that is what we call dying.”
Please hug someone you love today in remembrance of how fragile, short and mysterious life can be.
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