Could I mean you? Perhaps! Depends on how you define the two title words. In this particular case, I’m writing about well-known people whom I admired who were alive when I was alive, and now are not. To some extent, these feel like missed opportunities, though my meeting any of them was wildly improbably even while we shared the planet.

The idea was sparked by David Graeber, whose new book, The Dawn of Everything, seems to be reviewed in all my feeds this week. I was unaware of him previously, though I am very excited to read this book, which appears to fall squarely into my confirmation bias comfort zone. Graeber died unexpectedly in Venice in 2020, so the reviewer in The Atlantic wrote a touching tribute as part of his review, a tribute so affecting I regretted the loss.

My paternal grandmother’s cousin, Gale Storm, surely the most famous person in my bloodline, died in 2009. I have been aware of her for most of my life, and considered her the progenitor of the several singers and actors in my extended family, both professional and amateur, including my own younger son. I considered sharing this with her via her fan club while she was alive, but never did.

Buckminster Fuller has been my response to Name the famous person you most admire for most of my adult life, and I was astounded when I learned our lives had intersected for multiple decades, though I may not have been aware of him when he died in 1983. I was a nascent adult then. Best known perhaps for improving and popularizing the geodesic dome, he was an inventor, author, and futurist who made contributions in a wide range of fields, and seemed able to support himself simply by doing what he loved and sharing what he thought. All of it was substantive; if you’re thinking of him as an early “influencer,” please desist.

Leonard Berstein died in 1990. He was only doing limited conducting during his last decade, but his very last conducted concert was at Tanglewood in August of his last year. I was living in Boston at the time, and could have seen that concert, or perhaps others in Boston or NYC, except I didn’t. Since then, I have discovered many links between his works and my life, and feel both an appreciation of his many contributions both musical and humanitarian as well as regret for the goals he failed to achieve, which weighed on him heavily at times.

The amazing philosopher, historian, and author Isaiah Berlin died in 1997. I’ve read and re-read his works, mostly on topics such as Russian philosophers and the Enlightenment, avidly since I was a very young adult, yet since his works were about things in the past, I somehow thought he lived and died in the past as well. I was astounded when I learned, after his passing, that our lives overlapped for four decades. I think of myself as a fox rather than a hedgehog, but if you disagree, let me know.

My own mother died last month, and though she was not a celebrity, I have been contacted by many people for whom she provided deep friendship or solace, and even several who regarded her as a substitute parent. This has quite taken me aback. During the latter part of her life she was increasingly reliant on me as well as apparently self-centered, and while we talked more often than weekly, I had gotten out of the habit of viewing her as someone with wisdom or support to offer. Now, though, I see that her strength was simply re-directed, and I am happy for those who were able to benefit from her counsel, and grateful to them for the love they gave her.