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| Paul Huang's Eulogy at Cameron's Memorial Service |
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To give you an idea of Cameron's best attributes, I'd have to start at the
beginning. The boy is the father of the man.
When Cameron was a toddler just about a year old, he had a Nanny from Colombia
who spoke very little English. (In 1978,1 worked in a converted barn/studio
next to the house while Cameron's Mom commuted to New York.) This meant that
Lucy and Cameron spent the day together. Naturally, Lucy communicated with
Cameron in her native language. When she discovered that Cameron had the
ability to learn Spanish at this early age, she was delighted.
Lucy kept telling me how smart Cameron was. (To communicate "smart", she used
to point at Cameron, then point to her head and then nod with a big smile.) I
knew what she meant.
One morning, Lucy spoke a series of sentences in Spanish to Cameron. He
listened attentively, then picked up the toys on the kitchen table and brought
them up to his room. When he came back into the kitchen, Lucy said a few words
to him again. Whereupon Cameron threw up both of his arms and said: "Viva
Cameron!" Much to my amazement, Cameron's first full sentence in his life was
in Spanish. Both he and Lucy beamed with such pride!
During Christmas of his second year, I gave him a model Mercedes. This was the
first present he opened on Christmas morning. His eyes glistened with
excitement and anticipation. He wanted to build the car, NOW. So I sat him down
on my lap and spread the many and various parts and pieces on the kitchen
table.
This confident little boy was totally unfazed by the complexity of what he saw
spread out before him. I remember thinking, well this will last about fifteen
minutes. Naturally, I was fully prepared, and in fact had anticipated building
the car myself. Under my direction, Cameron's little fingers picked up and
inserted an one-inch-diameter wheel onto the axle. I dabbed the glue to finish
that component. (He was not allowed to handle airplane glue.) Piece by piece,
part by part we worked to construct the model. Cameron did not tire, nor did he
lose interest.
Outside of a necessary Pamper-changing break, we worked on the model all
morning long. We took a lunch break and I insisted that Cameron take his nap,
but only after he made me promise not to do anything to the car without him.
When he woke, we resumed our work. We finished the job just before dinnertime.
That April, when Cameron was two and a half, we took him to visit the Early
Learning Center in Stamford, CT. Cameron walked into the large,
auditorium-sized room, saw all manner of children aged from 3 to 6 clustered
about at various "work" areas. He headed straight for the block-puzzle area,
sat down and began working with that group of students.
The Headmistress observed Cameron's behavior for a few minutes, turned to us
and said: "He's ready." She told us that she didn't usually accept children
under 3 who were not toilet trained, but in Cameron's case, she would make an
exception.
Cameron started school the next Monday. A few days later, when I dressed him
for school, he announced that he no longer wanted or needed Pampers. He had
toilet trained himself by watching the other boys at school.
When the Ridgefield school system cut its LEAP program, we enrolled Cameron
into the New Canaan Country School. By the time he reached the 7th grade, it
was clear that he needed to be in a high school that could provide enough
stimulation to satisfy his intellectual capabilities.
I took him on a long road trip through the Northeast visiting nearly all of the
best college preparatory schools, finally ending up at Choate in Wallingford
Ct. We entered the main building where Cameron saw a huge glassed-in room full
of computers. Cameron decided that Choate would be his school. He would not
apply to another.
Like most Choate applicants, Cameron had near-perfect test scores. He knew that
what would separate him from the other applicants would be his essay.
He set out to write about personal desires versus personal choices. He told the
story of how he loved to ride his dirt bike (the peddle kind) through the woods
at break-neck speeds. But, at a certain juncture, the bike path forked. The
left path was a safe sure route across a shallow stream. The right path, on the
other hand, had a wooden jump over the stream. This was the riskier, fun path.
Which path should he take? The decision had to made quickly.
Cameron wrote the story in such a way that he made me, the reader, think that
he'd take the shorter, riskier, fun path to reach his objective. But no, at the
very last moment, he chose the safe sure path because reaching his objective
was far more important than not reaching it. Cameron was 13 at the time.
Choate is a boarding school where all the entering freshmen lived in one
dormitory. One night, I received a call from Cameron informing me that he had
been disciplined for unruly behavior. Part of his punishment was to call me.
Well, what had he done? He said that he and a group of his friends were hanging
out together when two Senior Proctors came by to assert their authority.
The Proctors told Cameron and his friends to break it up as it was close to
lights out. All the boys returned to their rooms except for Cameron. He
insisted that he had the right to stay to the very last second and by his
calculations, he had five minutes left. The Proctors disagreed.
This verbal confrontation escalated to the point where the two Seniors lifted
Cameron under his armpits and proceeded to carry him out of the room. Cameron
grabbed the doorframe above his head and held on. The seniors pulled to free
Cameron's grip, but to no avail. Neither side knew how to break the stalemate.
One Proctor leaned very close to Cameron's face and screamed in his loudest
voice to let go. Without hesitation, Cameron stuck out his tongue and licked
the red-faced Senior fully on the cheek. Both seniors instantly freed Cameron.
I asked Cameron why he felt the need to stand up to these Seniors. Didn't he
know that they could put the screws to him for the rest of the year? He replied
that these two guys had been overstepping their authority with him and his
friends anyway, so there was nothing for him to lose. He felt he had to take a
stand.
I laughingly praised Cameron for being so creative in his self-defense. More
importantly, I was curious as to what the Seniors' reaction had been. Ugh, you
homo, one said as he wiped his cheek with the back of his hand. And had this
senior retaliated? No. They weren't sure what to make of him, so they've left
him alone. There were no further incidents.
Cameron had an unique, innate way of solving problems, be they social,
practical or academic. At Choate, Cameron became the system's administrator for
the school's computer network. He knew how to set up his own Internet bulletin
board. Looking back, he was probably one of the first students in the country
to have that ability. (Cameron thought Bill Gates was a cool guy.)
Cameron graduated from Choate and attended Trinity College in Hartford, CT for
one semester before dropping out. He had absolute confidence in his technical
abilities and he felt certain that he could succeed without a college degree.
(I've often wondered what role Bill Gates' life had on my son, as Gates also
dropped out of college.) Cameron had always been a voracious reader/student of
any subject that interested or intrigued him. And there were many. There were
no limits to his intellectual capabilities nor was he intimidated by any
subject, no matter how arcane or difficult. If he wanted to understand
something, he pursued it until he grasped it.
He read Einstein's Theory of Relativity and we talked about the subject at
length. By the end of that conversation, I knew he knew more than I did.
Cameron's heart and mind had the capability to envelop the possibilities of
life "from the granular to the cosmic." His words. Not only did he look at his
personal life from that point of view, but he applied it to his professional
life as well.
On Cameron's website he wrote: "You can't see the world through a mirror." Next
to that line is a picture of him in the bathroom taking a picture of himself in
the mirror. The caption to the photo reads: "I used to get up, take a shower,
shave, brush my teeth, and then get dressed. At some point, I got so fucking
lazy that I decided shaving AFTER showering was taking away from time I could
be sleeping, so I started just bringing my razor into the shower with me. Now,
today, the razor, toothbrush AND the toothpaste don't leave the shower. I'm not
sure what's next, but I've tried bringing my morning coffee in, and it just
gets watered down. "
Cameron still makes me laugh.
Here's what Cameron wrote about his motorcycles (He had three.): "We take for
granted the amount of control we wield over our own bodies. Until, that is, we
perch ourselves on top of a 200 kilo, 3OO kph prosthesis with a telepathic link
and a primal love of torture. This much control over this much power is usually
the province of only gods and generals. Yet here we are."
"There is no more accurate representation of my liberty than right here. I
know, it might be silly to invest something as important as freedom in
something as fleeting as mechanical durability, but there it is: maybe the one
thing I can't live without. "
Cameron had the courage to live his life. Viva Cameron!
Written in loving Memory of my Son.
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