Farewell to the White Rabbit

Isn't it odd how we baffled bereaved immediately begin casting about in memory to establish each our own connection with the dead, as if to justify our grief? As if the loss of one such as Dr. Greer was not its own justification.

I never had a class with Tom, but I still have notes to a delightful Pew lecture on Whitman he presented one afternoon at the home of the Doctors Sonheim. I saw tears in his eyes as he presided over the lovely wedding of my friends Tiffany and Randy, and again at Tiffany's funeral just one year later.

He was my confidante as I planned first one and then another trip to China. Even before he knew me well at all, he remembered from some brief early chat my enthusiasm for all things Chinese, and thoughtfully tapped me to assist in meeting and chauffeuring visiting faculty members from Beijing University. He even invited me along to a send-off breakfast with them at Old Walt's, where, in his eagerness to express his appreciation for the parting gift of some floral tea, he accidentally schlooped a chrysanthemum petal up his nostril.

It does not come naturally to a young student to realize the demands on a professor's time and attention, nor did Tom ever attempt to make the point himself on those couple of occasions when I managed to find him in, and we sat in his dark cool office, hung with what seemed several lifetimes of Sino-souvenirs and gifts, and traded stories of travel in our favorite land across the sea. He seemed to take an almost boyish delight in pleasures and adventures not his own; doubtless one of the very qualities that made him a great reader and teacher of literature. It was Tom who encouraged me not to worry so much about plumping my resume immediately after college, to go to beautiful Yantai for a year and work at the university there on the coast of the Yellow Sea.

I thanked him then for the advice, and I have yet to regret having followed it. But I regret deeply the hole in our little OBU family, and the loss too of one who was an enthusiastic emissary to countless international students and professors, both at home and abroad. A professor at Yantai University who had been the beneficiary of Tom's hospitality during a visit to Arkansas put it very nicely. "Please tell Dr. Greer 'Nin hao' from me. Tell him he is always welcome in China, and in my home. He is a very lovely man."

Indeed.