My Family

Speaker ~ Robert Ferrara, DSL - Senior Director of Strategic Planning, Communications, and Alumni Relations

READINGS:

Families are complicated and the emotions and the experiences run the gamut. The Bible, especially the Book of Genesis, recounts many stories of familial rivalry, jealousy, and estrangement– like Jacob and Esau. But the stories of familial reconciliation and mutual support are also numerous and powerful, like this occasion when Joseph is reunited with his brothers in Egypt:

Genesis 45:1-8

Then Joseph could not restrain himself before all those who stood by him, and he cried out, “Make everyone go out from me!” So no one stood with him while Joseph made himself known to his brothers. And he wept aloud, and the Egyptians and the house of Pharaoh heard it. Then Joseph said to his brothers, “I am Joseph; does my father still live?” But his brothers could not answer him, for they were dismayed in his presence.

And Joseph said to his brothers, “Please come near to me.” So they came near. Then he said: “I am Joseph your brother, whom you sold into Egypt. But now, do not therefore be grieved or angry with yourselves because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life. For these two years the famine has been in the land, and there are still five years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvesting. And God sent me before you to preserve a posterity for you in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance. So now it was not you who sent me here, but God; and He has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt.

Thanks for this opportunity to reflect and share some stories.

I think the overall theme today is - family life through thick & thin, good times & bad – based on our shared experiences, shared memories, and shared futures. .

This timing is especially appropriate because my wife Deena and I just got back last week from an MIT Travel trip to Sicily, where I was able to find my grandfather’s birthplace.  

The opening reading reminded us that the families of the Biblical patriarchs had their share of issues and dysfunction - just like our families today.  In my family’s case, I do not think it ever got so bad that my siblings wanted to throw me into a pit and abandon me – as Joseph’s brothers did.  Though, the thought might have occurred to them at times.     But we have had many more good times than bad.

I grew up in a family of 5 children – 3 older sisters – Marie, Nicole, and Gen - and a twin brother Ray, who also attended MIT with me. BTW, I am 10 minutes older than Ray        and that is huge.

Like all of you, each of our siblings has several special talents and gifts. For today’s theme – family life – it is my middle sister Gen who is a key. She is the main family genealogist. She not only does the lion’s share of research on our roots, but also used her artistic talents to create a lovely illustrated book for all of us.

So I had good material heading to Sicily and to my grandfather’s birthplace, the town of Castelbouno (“Good Castle”) way up in the mountains east of Palermo near Cefalu. It is quite beautiful and I’m happy to show you my iPhone pictures afterward.  

All 5 of us siblings have vivid images of “gramps”, as we called him. After all, he lived upstairs and owned the house. We loved him, and he loved us – and Sicily and all Italians, too. For many years, he served as Treasurer of an Italian insurance agency, the Italo-American National Union.

His was typical American story – Ellis Island, Inner city Italian ghetto, struggle for work and education and to make a place for the next generation.  His name was Vincent (like my middle name) and he followed his dad Dominic, coming from the old “old country” in 1900. Sicily was impoverished then and, from what I can tell, America was not a lot better. The extended family all lived in Chicago’s near North side at Oak & Sedgwick Streets. The tenements there were razed to make way for the Cabrini-Green Housing project.   

In 1928, Gramps bought a house farther up the north side, past Wrigley Field. This is where we 5 grew up, and frankly, as I child, I thought I would never leave. It was great growing up in Chicago then during the baby boom. Ours was hugely Catholic neighborhood, highly diverse and teeming with kids. It was lot like MIT.  There were always interesting people around, adventures to be had, trouble to get into.

There were some tough times, too. This was the city and violence was not uncommon. Several kids I grew up with were shot, one even at second base during a dispute in a softball game. There were also times when food was scarce. And there was lots of parental tension. My folks did stay together, however, until all of us were raised and we are very grateful for that. They provided a stable home. They also insisted that we get good educations.  We all went to the local parochial school, St. Ita’s, to be educated by the Sisters of Mercy (That is a misnomer!)

My Alumni Association inspiration came in very handily recently. I organized our old group going to plan 50^th St Ita’s grade school reunion. It was terrific, like none of us ever left. Two classmates who had lost their spouses, Steve Benzenyei and Jean Mulvaney, met again and shortly after married!

St. Ita’s provided a far better education than the local Chicago public schools. For high school, my brother Ray and I went off Loyola Academy, a superb school run by the Jesuits, the great teaching order.  Through this all these years, my mom was the glue. All our friends loved her, too.

Mom died in 2007, just shy of her 90^th birthday. She left this world the way she wanted. She died at her home in her own bed. All 5 of us were in the next room because Gen had summoned us back to Chicago a few days before.  She died towards evening, just as a fierce snowstorm arose. The funeral home people could not even come. So my sisters washed her and then we all kept a vigil that evening. It was a long and loving good bye. 

My current immediate family started right in this Chapel.  My wife Deena and I were married here 41 years ago. We were a “mixed” marriage and neither side wanted to officiate. So there were fewer choices back then. She was Jewish, and I was nominally a Catholic. Since then, I have converted to her beautiful faith and even have had an adult Bar Mitzvah.  She is truly an incredible partner, and is the center of our family. Her first focus was of course our kids, Michael & Elizabeth

Deena was a stay-at-home mom early on, then she started helping at their pre-school. Because she is such a natural with children, she rose from parent helper, to teacher, and finally director of the pre-school. After pre-school, the kids attended the school right across the railroad tracks from Deena’s pre-school, the Acton Barn. After the kids left grade school, Deena took a job a few blocks closer to our home, right at the end of our street, at the local high quality produce store, Idylwilde Farms. She likes short commutes.  

Mostly these have been great years, but we had one storm to weather - our son Mike’s mental illness. He always had learning and behavioral issues, but then close to 20 years of age, it was apparent that he was schizophrenic. In many ways, his was a classic case, but to parents in the middle of coping with this madness, it is numbing, by far the worst experience I’ve ever had. We should remember that 1 out of six American families have to deal with some form of mental illness. And we as a society have a long way to go. In particular, Massachusetts lags in support for the mentally ill.  Fortunately, Mike is in a group home in Minnesota, which has the best care of any state in the union. I visit him at least 2-3 times per year.  As the staff there and I both know his delusions are now permanent, but still I think the visits help.

But there is a silver lining even in this. I think you treasure life that much more. 

And it turns out one of my fraternity brothers, a bit older than me, has an eldest daughter who is bipolar. From this experience, Jim & Pat Poitras decided to fund the Poitras Center for Affective Disorders Research here at MIT. It is part of the McGovern Center for Brain Research. Jim & Pat periodically invite us to talks at the Center, and this has allowed us to understand better the roots of Mike’s illness. BTW, the middle Poitras daughter, Laura, has just won a MacArthur Genius Grant!

Our daughter Liz and son-in-law Andrew have a great marriage. They blessed us with two grandkids, Sam & Annie. And, as far as Deena and I are concerned, this pair is as good as it gets. In fact Deena is babysitting for them right now, as she does every Tuesday – and Friday – and other weekend days if we can. Sam is older by a few years and has become quite fond of MIT, as may note from the quote in the readings to follow.

I am quite fond of MIT, too, and I want to end with an anecdote from our MIT Family.

A few Fridays ago, Deena and I were to head to Logan for the flight to Sicily. This was our first overseas trip in five years and I was the MIT host, so Deena got to MIT in plenty of time, about 3:30PM.

Things started well enough when she parked temporarily in that U turn area on Mass. Ave next to the Student Center and I quickly hailed a cab. As Deena instructed, I moved the luggage from her car to the cab and, per our plan, jumped into her car to move to the West Garage. Nothing! The car was stone cold dead. So all I could do was ask the cab driver to call back in 20-30 minutes. Then my attention turned to calling AAA and collecting the luggage out the cab.

What I did not know was that my wife also had her purse and another case with all her personal things in the back seat of the cab. We did not realize the miscommunication until the cab was gone. And neither of us remembered the name of the company on the cab door. And then it started raining.

We were completely deflated. Deena did see how she could go on a trip with her personal ID and her womanly things. I had to go because I was the MIT host. Into this dismal picture, two people came by to help. One was my DSL colleague, Tom Gearty, whose office is just down the W32 hallway from me. The other was Jason Ku, a fraternity brother who just happened to be in Cambridge visiting from Japan.

They were immense, helping and consoling us for the next hour and a half, coping with AAA and moving the dead car, calling every cab company in Cambridge, and generally strategizing about the pickle we were in. They would not leave as long as there was anything we could do. I am deeply grateful to both. |

Finally they prevailed on us to go the airport, where the best hope was to wait and hope that the first cab driver would eventually realize he had Deena’s belongings and call. Fortunately, he did just that, calling about 5:30. The best plan was to have him meet us in the airport, where I - very happily – wound up paying two cab fares to Logan – both with big tips. It was just in a nick of time, but my wife Deena could come – and really enjoy what turned out to be a very remarkable trip.

I know so many of you would have done what Tom and Jason did. They really saved us. This is the kind of community we have.

So I am grateful for my MIT family and my St. Ita family and my Deena family and to all of you for letting me share these stories. 

You don't choose your family. They are God's gift to you, as you are to them.

Bishop Desmond Tutu

Every family has a story that it tells itself, that it passes on to the children and grandchildren. The story grows over the years, mutates, some parts are sharpened, others dropped, and there is often debate about what really happened. But even with these different sides of the same story, there is still agreement that this is the family story. And in the absence of other narratives, it becomes the flagpole that the family hangs its identity from.

A.M. HOMES, O Magazine, Apr. 2007

“Dominic married the beautiful young Geochina Cardella in Castelbouno, Sicily and had two children, Vincent [my grandfather] and Pauline. She died in childbirth with a third baby.  After her death, he married her older sister Michelena to help raise the children. They had two more children - Geochina [my great aunt Jennie] was born in Sicily and Eleanor was born shortly after they immigrated to Chicago.

Grandpa Dominic worked on the railroad as “pick and shovel’ man, hard labor. Dominic had also worked in Mississippi on a rice plantation (a 10’ black snake really scared him) and in Oklahoma Indian territory and in Louisiana”. .

Uncle Gene Ferrara (1919 – 2011), as told to my middle sister Gen, the family genealogist  

 “I might not be able to come because I have to go to my job as a robot scientist at MIT”.

Grandson Sam Beal, age 3, on why he would miss Nursery School the next day

A visit

A few weeks ago the Dalai Lama spent  ten hours on the campus of MIT. In addition he spoke to over 2500 people at the Copley Marriott. All was done in support of the Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values at MIT. The work of preparing for the visit occupied a host of volunteers and sucked the air out of many a meeting room as those with interests in the visit jockeyed for position. In the end all went well, but once again I was reminded that the intersection of science and matters of the Spirit is filled with traffic.

There is first the rock star status of His Holiness.  Everyone wants a picture and I would argue that he is the best known religious leader in the world today. That is saying something in the United States where Christian figures have occupied the pinnacles of recognition in the decades past.

This 78 year old spokesman for the heart and head commands attention. His story is a study in courage.  James Taylor warmed up the audience on Sunday and then stepped back to gaze in reverence as His Holiness took his seat. Everywhere he goes there are those from Tibet who seek to see and touch him carrying as he does their hopes and dreams. They have not gotten the memo that he gave up his political role. The resulting security demands are daunting. For weeks before the events men in black went over every aspect of the visit and it only took a bit of unexplained white powder to illustrate why their fieldwork was necessary.

Second, there is the shadow of China hanging over the visit. The Institute with its interests in China is wary of being too cozy with His Holiness and there are those who call our courage into question, but the line between being courageous and being foolish is often seen but seldom defined. Put another way, it is easy to be courageous when you have nothing at stake, harder when you do. The minimal attention paid the visit caused some tense moments when folk arrived Monday morning to find the large parking lot in the middle of campus full of security types and command centers.  Nothing riles a university like a lost parking space!

The visit had three parts. There was public teaching and conversation on Sunday that dealt with his new book: Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World. Joining His Holiness were Thomas Keating, the founder of the Centering Prayer Movement, now in his 90s, and David Stendahl-Rast who speaks of gratitude as key to the good life. The conversation went on for over two hours and when it was over folks left challenged by the wisdom of elders. I left wondering if there was not a bit too much talk about evolutionary improvement and too little talk about gratitude.

The next day was ordered around conversations

 Global Systems 2.0 | A panel conversation with His Holiness the Dalai Lama and other luminaries  read the poster.  Panelists included John Sterman, Rebecca Henderson, James Orbinski, Jonathan Foley, and others.

Panel I: Ethics, Economy, and Environment

Panel II: Peace, Governance, and Diminishing Resources

One friend known for low tolerance for posturing claimed he had left for the first time in recent conversations about the environment feeling some hope. The auditorium was not filled, but then the publicity had been modest. Rock stars do not overturn well honed behavior when it comes to academics.

Tuesday Kresge Auditorium was filled for a morning of teaching about Buddhism for the 21^st century. It is the tenth anniversary of the rebirth of the Buddhist community at MIT and it was appropriate for attention to be paid to sacred texts.  During the visit there were other speakers and other gatherings. It was Family Week-End and there was more than enough activity to keep everyone spinning.

It is remarkable, therefore, that in the middle of it all there was the Dalai Lama, seen by some, missed by most. It could have been so much more, but in retrospect it was what it needed to be: a time for some to pause and ponder. In this community where hyperactivity is a golden calf I do not think you can ask for more. A graduate put it all in context:

I was privileged to attend Brother David's talk on Saturday, His Holiness's panel discussion on Sunday, and the MIT conference yesterday.  I wish I could have attended all of the events surrounding His Holiness's visit, but the three events I attended were for me an extraordinarily rich blessing.  

Furthermore, as an undergraduate student at MIT in the 1980s, and subsequently as an alumna, I have been dismayed at the absence of any substantive ethics discussion either in the classes I was offered or (apparently, at least from my outside perspective) within the Institute or its Corporation.   In all the world there is perhaps no other institution that is more obligated by its stature and purpose to lead in the field of ethics, and it was a sore absence.  I am thrilled and grateful that you are encouraging rigorous and compassionate practice of the discipline of ethics there, at the Institute, and here, within ourselves.

In leading so deftly, so warmly, so admirably, the Center has given all of us a great gift.   I was surprised to hear myself remarking to a friend last evening that after the past three days I feel the Center has even helped me to feel more kindly toward my alma mater, with which I have always had a powerfully ambivalent relationship.  There are no doubt countless more fruits of your very practical modeling of compassion, and I am grateful to you for mine, and for all the others experienced by people I will never know.

May you continue to be blessed in your ministry and in your personal path.

We are grateful!

Robert M. Randolph

Chaplain to the Institute

Massachusetts Institute of Technology