• Here he is attending, until just a few months ago, every Cathedral School Board meeting as an emeritus trustee. • Here he is being asked about whether he ever wished that he had boys instead of his three daughters (known affection- ately around School as the “Forbes Girls”) and responding with, “Why, I already have 165 sons!” Perhaps the true challenge of remembering David comes in trying to depict the multitude of ways in which he offered himself to each of us: father, husband, partner, teacher, leader, educator, theologian, friend, activist, confidant. It's the challenge of describing a man who in one moment carries the complexity of a Picasso mural and moments later the simple beauty of a portrait by Vermeer. A dear friend once described a fellow educator in this way: “ [H]e was a sonata fading into a jazz riff rising into a show tune that drops into a bluegrass ballad that sails into an operatic aria that becomes beach music without you even noticing. He was Bill Monroe picking for Pavarotti, William Faulkner channeling James Thurber. ” How aptly this describes David, too. Most style manuals warn against the use of tautologies and mixed metaphors; they often cause confusion and unneces- sarily complicate the written or spoken word. Perhaps this eulogy presents a good example of those dangers. Yet, I can't help but remember, much less describe, David without employing triple tautologies and a myriad of metaphors. And in this, I believe, lay David's power. It's not that David was unduly or unnecessarily complex, but rather, that he had the divine gift of empathy; he had an innate and God-given ability to understand the needs of others. He could tell what those of us in his presence or those in his care needed and he presented himself to us in ways that met our needs. For you see, above everything else, David was a shepherd, and we were his flock. As we make our way through today's liturgy, we should remain mindful of the frequency with which images and diction of the pastoral—shepherds, lambs, sheep, and flocks—appear. Certainly, these are images that in Christian theology symbolize God and our relationship to him. But for those who knew David Forbes, or even of David Forbes, we can't help but recognize that these themes and these images represent, so thoroughly, his place in our lives. For in the words of the great Hymn #664, one that all Cathedral School boys know, “Our Shepherd did supply our need, David was his name.”
time, somewhat frail. He was much more of a David than a Goliath. And yet his influence was obvious. Of the hundreds of people in the room, he was the only one surrounded by others, a host of educators, all eager to be in the presence of this great man. It is worth recognizing that the bodies in our universe that exert the strongest gravitational pull are also some of the universe's most diminutive. And here he was, a veritable neutron star of a man, surrounded a coterie of other bodies, inescapably drawn to and revolving around him. Although it was late in the afternoon, David waited patiently and gave each colleague his full and undivided attention. The throng eventually subsided, and I made my way to him. I acknowledged that it was late in the afternoon and that we could easily find more time later, but David proceeded to regale me for the next few hours with the stories of the founding of and the philosophy behind his beloved Cathedral School. His energy only grew as the conversation continued. I couldn't get enough of him. Speaking with so many of you over the few weeks since David's death, I have been reminded of just how much we were all drawn to him. This theme of David surrounded by others emerged regularly though conversations and correspondence. (How many of us traveled to Palm Springs or wanted to travel to Palm Spring to be with him over his last few weeks?) Your memories correspond with my own. And although I never had the occasion to observe him as Head of School, I can imagine how he operated within the hallways of Cathedral School for Boys: as a body always in motion, always surrounded by others. If we revert back, just for a moment, to the imaginative power of our kindergarten selves, we can see him at this very moment: • Here he is depicted at the mural at the front of Grace Cathedral appearing at the perfect time to lay a firm but loving hand on a boy's shoulder; • Here he is channeling, somehow, the incomparable and kinetic force that was Mimi Lowrey to start one of this country's great schools; • Here he is chaperoning 8th grade trips to Yosemite, weather be damned, so that boys could get outside of the city and experience something transcendent and perhaps discover, even, the presence of God in nature; • Here he is responding to one of the Orser boys, called to his office for yet another infraction. This Orser proudly proclaims, “I am not scared of you,” and David retorts by saying, “Well you should be because you are now suspended." • Here he is attending choir camp both to satiate his love of choral music and to delight the choristers with ghost stories around the camp fire.
WINTER 2023 • RED & GOLD | 25
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