Our hearts are broken from Sid’s untimely and tragic passing.

He was an open book which is befitting of an author. He never withheld his feelings of love for his family and extended family, his gratitude, his happiness, his zest for life, his sportsmanship and his quest for knowledge.

He had boundless energy for his projects but was happiest spending time with family. He was a great storyteller recalling his sailing adventures from his childhood, the journey he undertook writing his books, travels in Egypt and Scotland to just going to the local dump. Sid was also interested in everyone else’s story.

People introduced to Sid for the first time were always intrigued to meet this award-winning author. They peppered him with questions but soon found out that Sid was not interested in talking about himself. He could certainly delight an audience with the most fascinating stories, but he didn’t like to make it about himself, and he certainly didn’t “listen to himself talk” as so many smart and witty people do. He wanted to know more about you, and soon the tables would be turned, and the interviewee became the interviewer.

Sid was a social animal because he loved people, not because he craved recognition or attention, and people loved him back because they saw that in him.

We really got an opportunity to get to know Sid when he and Nancy spent time with us and other family members in cottage country where he would help out. Despite all the difficulties of life in the country, he was in his element working hard to keep things up and running.

One minute he would be knee deep in mud, digging a ditch, next skillfully piloting a Duffy boat through the lakes. Sid loved entertaining and was at his best hosting friends and family at BBQs, holiday celebrations or just a simple dinner party where he would expertly concoct his famous gin and tonics.

Sid was truly a loving and dedicated husband to Nancy and their life together. He was a devoted father, stepfather and grandfather. And his sisters share marvelous stories from their childhood. Nancy was always moved by the generosity of his love and the effort he made to be a good stepfather to our nieces Mercedes and Vienna. Our family embraced Sid as one of our own and he loved that and never failed to let us know. Sid was a magnet for friendship and no matter where he went, he made friends along the way.

Always a gentleman, always generous of heart and spirit –he will always be in our hearts. Sid will be missed by so many.

Growing Up, Part IV

Some of my fondest memories of Sid come from the late 70s and early 80s, when I was in high school in Stony Brook and he was in graduate film school at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. Meanwhile, my sister was away for three years in grad school studying art history in Italy. Stony Brook is about 60 miles from Manhattan and accessible by the LIRR. Sid and his classmates were required to work in small groups on many short films. Since getting permits to film outdoor scenes in New York City is expensive, Sid often brought his film crews to Long Island, where they could work more freely. My parents, always welcoming and generous to guests, hosted Sid’s fellow students. One time, Dad acted in a student film set in what was then known as Hargrave Vineyard on the south shore. Dad played a hit man, wearing a felt hat with a large brim pulled down low to make his round, friendly face look sinister.

Dad had a reel-to-reel projector and a large screen mounted on a tripod stand that we set up in our living room. This was long before DVDs or even VCR tapes. So, it was a big treat when Sid would borrow reel-to-reel films from the N.Y.U. Film Library, and we’d watch them in our family’s living room. I remember three favorites: Akira Kurosawa’s “Seven Samurai,” Jean Cocteau’s “La Belle et La Bête,” and the 1922 silent German version of “Nosferatu.”

Sometimes my parents went away on trips, and joy—oh, joy—left Sid in charge of me at home. Sid brought a film crew out to Stony Brook during one of those times. Sid made it clear that those three classmates—two men and one woman—did not have free rein of the whole house. They were to provide their own food and stay in our furnished basement overnight, where they had their own bathroom and a small kitchenette. My mother had left a whole cooked turkey in our refrigerator upstairs for Sid and me. She intended it to last a week. Throughout the night, the film crew sneaked upstairs and carved off little pieces of the turkey. By morning, it was a carcass.

That crew was making a horror movie. It wasn’t Sid’s movie or his script, though I played a part in it. On film, I slowly crept downstairs into the living room, holding my mother’s largest kitchen knife. I was shown in silhouette, casting a creepy shadow. In another scene, I stabbed a pillow with the kitchen knife. What did my parents ever find out about all this? Nothing. Except Mom questioned Sid about some marks on the living room walls caused by the film equipment.

Another time when Sid was taking care of me, there was a snowstorm. The school bus never ventured into our woodsy, hilly neighborhood in the snow. One of Sid’s friends happened to be visiting—a character who wore a leather jacket and leather pants and drove a sports car. This flashy young man was planning to drive back to Manhattan. So, on his way, he drove me to school. That was excitement!

By the way, I was a day student at a boarding school. One time, my parents went to Peru and arranged for me to stay at the school instead of with Sid. I loved my school and thought I’d enjoy being a boarder, but I was in for a big shock. I was sent back to my room three times before I could eat dinner because I didn’t wear the right clothes to the dining hall. Apparently, I was supposed to wear a blazer. There were room checks, and my roommate had a runny nose and left tissues on the floor, tossing them down from the upper bunk, which earned us both demerits. The worst part was the lights-out rule. Sid had gotten me into the habit of watching “Saturday Night Live,” which aired from 11:30 to 1. I had to go to bed without watching it. The next day, upset and crying, I called Sid from the payphone and told him to come get me. The following day, my lovely brother, true to his caring nature, took the train all the way from the city and met with a school administrator. Unfortunately, the school wouldn’t release me to Sid.

At school, everyone had a brass mailbox with a key. Day students didn’t get much mail, but thanks to Sid, I received both The Village Voice and The East Village Eye. That was another kind gesture from Sid to me. At home, he always gave me his copies of Andy Warhol’s Interview Magazine—the best magazine ever—and loaned me his Cat Stevens records. Once, he drove me to a school dance, went into the room where it was happening, and stayed with me long enough for my classmates to meet him.

Sometimes, my parents let me take the train to Manhattan and stay overnight with Sid. Nothing brought me more joy than those times. Sid moved a few times during graduate school, living in an apartment on Riverside Drive and later in the East Village on Avenue B. Sid took me to all kinds of places: a Ukrainian bakery, Chinese restaurants for dim sum, small theaters showing foreign films, and punk rock clothing stores in the East Village. I stayed a preppy with a few stylish touches, like my short red leather boots.

Sid’s girlfriends over the years were always kind to me. Thelma, Sid’s girlfriend during those NYU days, later became his first wife. I didn’t own any makeup, but she gave me some along with a makeup brush, which I cherished. Once, Sid and Thelma took me to the punk rock club CBGB & OMFUG. I was sixteen or seventeen and looked much younger. Together, Sid and Thelma planned how to get me into the club. Thelma twisted my hair into a French twist, gave me a fake leopard coat—which I wore with one of her belts—and loaned me a pair of dark glasses. CBGB was a rough, crowded, smoke-filled hole-in-the-wall with show flyers pasted on its black walls. It was so loud I could feel the stomping beat course right through me. If it were now, I’d never be able to tolerate that level of noise, but back then, it was electrifying. I’d never had so much fun in my entire life.

That chapter of my life ended suddenly and painfully in the early summer of 1982. Shortly after I graduated from high school, Sid and Thelma moved to Hollywood, while I was headed to a women’s college in New England that I didn’t want to attend.

Within a year, I would visit California. There would be new adventures waiting. Soon, Sid would be driving me along the spectacular Pacific Coast Highway, winding past towering sea cliffs through Monterey and Big Sur, with the turquoise ocean below us. It was truly magical. That’s another story, and I don’t have time to write more now. Thanks for reading these stories about the best big brother in the entire world. 

Growing Up, Part III

In the 1970s, when Sid and Jen were in high school and then college, and I was in grade school, we took some wonderful family vacations abroad. I was five when we went to Spain and Portugal. One morning in Madrid, I heard the clomping of horse hooves on the cobblestoned street and Sid calling to me from outside the hotel. I looked down at the street, and, to my delight, there were Sid and Jen, about thirteen and fourteen at the time, riding in an open-air, horse-drawn carriage. My parents and I soon joined my brother and sister for a tour of the city.

During that same trip, a guitarist at a restaurant serenaded my sister. A waiter poured fruity and deceptively alcoholic sangria into her mouth. We spent Holy Week in Seville. I remember haunting music, a procession of spooky figures in pointed white hoods, and gory wax floats that depicted scenes from Christ’s Passion. On this trip and others afterward, we explored dark and mysterious places—caves in the Pyrenees and cathedrals lit by hundreds of long tapers. Throughout Europe, we climbed the spiral stairs of castle towers. For teenage Sid, and for all of us, these trips were much more than school breaks; they were windows into other worlds.

When I was eleven, we visited Stonehenge on a wet and blustery Christmas Day, and our umbrellas turned inside out. The pouring rain transformed the narrow roads into muddy, treacherous channels. Our rental car splashed through high hedges of stone and brush. Wherever we were supposed to go that evening, we didn’t make it there. We ended up staying in a shabby, freezing-cold inn. The boiled meat lacked flavor, and the vegetables were overdone. In hindsight, the people singing carols outside might have been beggars. My mother burst into tears when she saw them, and I couldn’t understand why. She said, “It’s Christmas and I wanted all of you to have a good memory.” Well, we had many adventures—and a few misadventures—but all of those times were wonderfully enriching for our souls.

On another trip to England, about a year later, Sid took me to the Marquee, the London rock club where the Rolling Stones had made their debut years earlier. The rest of the family visited Wimpleton that day. From my child’s perspective at the time, the last thing I wanted was to go somewhere to watch tennis. Sid suggested we go to the Marquee, which, unlike American clubs, allowed children because it did not serve alcohol. I remember it being spacious and well-lit, with cheerful red-and-white striped awnings. Excited to visit a cool, grown-up place with my sweet and handsome brother, I kept a Marquee flyer for many years.

Once, Sid took me to a rock club in Paris. By then, I was probably fourteen. Sid somehow knew a French family in Paris. They invited him to dinner, and he kindly took me along. Then a bunch of us went to a famed nightclub called Le Palace, where many people in their twenties and thirties were dressed in glamorous outfits, like in fashion magazines, and we stayed out until half the night. My parents were furious at Sid when we returned to our hotel so late.

Sid loved cemeteries, and I was lucky he brought me along. He enjoyed making impressions of gravestones on thin paper. We used large pieces of black wax, though once, when rubbing Houdini’s stone in a cemetery in Queens, New York, Sid used blue wax. I helped Sid collect tombstone impressions of many famous people. At London’s Highgate Cemetery, we made rubbings of the graves of Christina Rossetti, George Eliot, and Karl Marx. In Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, we gathered rubbings from Colette, Oscar Wilde, Gertrude Stein, and Isadora Duncan. In another Parisian cemetery, we made a rubbing of Arthur Rimbaud’s tombstone, which I sent to Patti Smith, the rock star.

Jen spent her junior year of college in Florence, Italy, and during that time, our family traveled together through Italy, Greece, and Turkey. We visited Roman catacombs and crypts in churches, where skulls from medieval plague victims were stacked in decorative pyramids. We toured Pompeii. In Naples, in a smoky movie theater, we saw the Italian version of “Jaws” — “Low Squalo.” The Italians were neither impressed nor frightened by the shark attacks, but the audience was quite vocal during the love scenes.

One terrifying afternoon, Dad took us most of the way up Mt. Vesuvius in a rental car. I remember the switchbacks without guard rails, small rocks crunching under the car’s tires, and slipping off the cliffs. The sky started to darken. My mother insisted we turn back. Somehow, we made it off that mountain alive.

Like Dad, Sid was fearless and loved to travel. Both had independent personalities that required them to work for themselves. Regarding historical and literary interests, Sid, my sister, and I inherited them from our mother.

I’ll share another travel story from this trip. We all loved Istanbul, and visiting it was Sid’s idea. I’ll never forget the stunning beauty of the Blue Mosque, with its large central dome, tall minarets, and thousands of vibrant blue tiles. When it was time to return to the U.S., we were stranded at the airport for two days because of a strike. I remember garbage was everywhere on the floor, and the guards had machine guns. During a security check, a guard took Sid aside. Later, back in the U.S., our family watched “Midnight Express” at the theater, and Sid started crying during a scene set in a Turkish prison. Sid said that at the Istanbul airport, guards took him to a room and made him strip naked. As a young American man around twenty, with shoulder-length hair, Sid probably fit the profile of someone who might be carrying drugs.

To read about the stage in our lives when Sid was going to film school in New York City and I was a high school student on Long Island, see part IV.

Growing Up, Part II

During the summers when we were growing up, Sid took me on adventures through the woods behind the Stony Brook Mill Pond and across the fields along his favorite trails. Off Strong’s Neck in Setauket, we waded through the slimy gray mud at low tide. Sid showed me how to recognize the rock-like feel of a clam under my feet. At the Old Field Club Beach, Sid took me sailing in our family’s Sunfish, a small sailing craft with a triangular red and white striped sail.

Knowing how rocky that beach is, I’m amazed that I went barefoot all summer. (How could the soles of my feet become that tough?) My long blond hair became a mass of tangles. Jen and my mother would sit on either side of me and comb out the knots while I screamed.

One day, my father broke his neck while teaching Sid to dive off the beach club’s float. Dad’s neck was in traction for a year. Someone else will have to tell that story. I either wasn’t born then or was too young to remember it.

We had two dogs: Weenie, a gray Miniature Poodle (who was a gift on my fifth birthday), and Willoughby, an Old English Sheepdog. For several summers in a row, while working as a waiter at the Three Village Inn in Stony Brook and wearing a Colonial-style outfit with a blue patterned vest, Sid collected scraps from people’s plates to feed to our dogs. These pungent and savory bits included filet mignon, lamb chops, and lobster meat. The dogs would come running around the house to greet Sid when they saw him coming!

Our family was known for throwing fantastic parties. My parents always went all out with food, games, activities, and decorations. We had colorful, seven-foot-tall Chinese paper-and-bamboo umbrellas that Dad set up in the backyard for everyone to sit under. Dad borrowed a pony for one of my birthday parties, and this pony stepped on my sister’s foot. Sid played Dr. Doolittle and wore a top hat. For the child guests, Dad made wooden push-me, pull-you two-headed horses that served as crayon holders.

The most memorable party was a birthday celebration for Kathleen O’Brien. Kathleen lived with us for several years when Jen and Sid were teenagers. She was an adult in her thirties with an intellectual disability. An orphan from Ireland raised by nuns, she came to us from Maryhaven in Port Jefferson after the convent could no longer care for their adult special needs residents. To make sure Kathleen felt welcome, Mom planned a party for her. Mom handed Kathleen a bundle of invitations. Kathleen took only a few cards, leading my mother to believe the party would be small. Unbeknownst to my parents, a friend of Kathleen’s had posted one invitation at Maryhaven and another at St. Charles Hospital, where Kathleen had worked doing laundry. Mom was in the bathroom doing her hair when the first busload of guests arrived. Sid rushed into the house excitedly and told Mom, “They want to know where the ramps are for the wheelchairs.”

With their usual generosity of spirit, my parents rose to the occasion of hosting a hundred people. Neighbors helped with the food. Sid was always responsible for the music, both for the family parties and the marionette shows the family put on for charities. The guests danced on the patio. “Men danced with men, women danced with women, and everyone danced with everyone,” my mother said. There were doctors, nurses, nuns, and adults with special needs, all mingling in one big group, having a joyous time.

I’ll share another story about Kathleen. She came to us with terminal cancer and a tumor in one breast the size of a tennis ball. By the time it was discovered, Kathleen had little time left. She moved into a nursing home. “Kathleen died with a big smile on her face,” my mother told me. A priest had given her the last rites, and she knew she was going to meet Jesus. Kathleen told Mom, “Thanks for everything!”

For several weeks after Kathleen’s death, a blue jay lingered near my mother. It would come to her, squawking, when my mother sat with her iced tea on the porch. The entire family noticed this phenomenon, and visitors to the house saw it too. The bluejay even flew two and a half miles to the Old Field Club and perched itself in the middle of the tennis net just before my mother and her friends played a game. Once, the bluejay landed on my mother’s shoulder and stayed there until one of her friends screamed, startling it away. The bird felt surprisingly heavy, Mom said. She always smiled when she related that part of the story.

To read about some of our family vacations, see part III.

Growing Up, Part I

Sid was the best brother anyone could ever have. Sid was eight when I was born, and my sister, Jen, was nine. I loved Sid and Jen and looked up to them. They adored me, too. Even if their friends were around, they didn’t exclude me.

On the day of my birth, my father called the Harbor Country Day School in St. James, Long Island, New York, where Sid and Jen were on the playground. Someone rang the school bell to announce the news to the whole school that Jenny and Sid Kirkpatrick had a new baby sister. The mounted bronze bell, pulled by a rope, was the iconic shape of the Liberty Bell and had a deep sound.

Later, at home, Sid told my mother, “The baby looks all right, but what’s wrong with her legs?” My legs must have looked bowed. They soon straightened out.

Sid liked pushing my stroller and racing across the playground as fast as he could run, Mom told me. I probably enjoyed those rides. My mother was worried sick.

My first memory of Sid is of us in our driveway in Stony Brook. On a clear, starry night, he lifted me onto his shoulders so I could get a better look at the sky. There’s a photo of Sid holding me as a baby in front of our parents’ Ford, a four-door, wood-paneled 1960s station wagon, in that same driveway.

For one wonderful year, when I was in kindergarten, Sid and I attended the Harbor Country Day School together. I was always an advanced student because Sid and Jen liked to teach me big words. By the time I entered first grade, Sid and Jen attended the Kent School, a boarding school in Connecticut. From this point on, around 1970, I had a lonely childhood. But in the summers and vacations, we were all together. See part II.

I was devastated when I heard the news of Sidney's passing. It was truly a blessing, honor, & challenge to provide care & assistance to such an unique, brilliant, well-lived, & loved person. I will forever cherish our discussions about Cayce, Osteopathic medicine, Asia, Taiwan, US, UK, Congress & Senate, Calvinism, Catholicism, biotechnology, biochemistry, and higher education. Thank you for the well-heeded advice about London.  Until our souls meet once again....Adieu

"The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you.” – Numbers 6:24 -25.