A Small, Intimate Universe: In Memory of Our Friend, Ted Geldberg

(Tribute)

Every so often, we are jolted out of whatever we consider normal. For me, it might be talking on the phone, playing the piano, writing a song, checking in with my kids, or lining up flights to gigs. Sometimes it’s as simple as making dinner or sitting with my wife to watch a show. A patchwork of ordinary, everyday things. And then, last night, the phone rang.

It was late. Ten o’clock. Not when friends usually call—not unless something’s wrong.

The voice on the other end was steady, careful. “Ted died.”

I couldn’t quite take it in. “Ted died? What do you mean?”

“They found him slumped over in his car. A heart attack, they think.”

I have this strange reaction when news like that comes. No tears—at least not right away. Not confusion either. It’s a kind of eerie calm. A shutting off of all other thoughts. Just one reality, ringing clear: Ted is no longer among the living.

I had just spoken to him the day before. He was helping me with something, as he always was.

Let me tell you a little bit about Ted—the little I knew, and the much more I came to feel. I first met him, maybe 25 or 30 years ago. He was always around at different functions. Tall. Handsome. Polite. A nice guy. But the truth is, I didn’t know him. And to be honest, I didn’t try. He wasn’t quite a stranger, but not a friend either.

That’s just how life goes sometimes—you pass people, maybe nod, maybe exchange a pleasantry, and keep walking. But in recent years, before my wife and I moved to the East Coast just before COVID—what was supposed to be a two-year stint that stretched into five—Ted appeared in our life in an entirely different way.

And that’s when I realized who he really was.

Ted was, without exaggeration, the most helpful person I’ve ever known. Helpful in a way that asked nothing in return. He just wanted to help. He lived to help.

You’d call him about a plumber? Boom—one was at your door the same day. Air conditioning guy? He knew someone. Kitchen remodel? He practically lived with us through it, coming by every day, checking on things.

It wasn’t transactional. It wasn’t about proving something, or wanting recognition. His help wasn’t a performance. It was simply the way he lived—and I think, the way he loved. I didn’t come to appreciate him just because I “got” something from him. That’s how it started, yes—but once you receive that kind of pure generosity, you start seeing the depth of the person who offers it.

Ted carried something with him that he didn’t often talk about. His parents were Holocaust survivors. Almost his entire family—grandparents, cousins—murdered in camps. Tortured. Brutalized. Somehow his parents survived, and Ted was raised in that shadow.

There’s a detail I’ll never forget. If you’ve seen Schindler’s List, you’ll remember the one spot of color in the whole film: the little girl in a red coat. Everything else is in black and white, except for her. That girl, who grew up into a woman, was Ted’s aunt. She’s still alive. Ted’s daily care for her is no doubt part of what kept her going. I can’t imagine how she’ll take this news.

Think about what it means to grow up in that lineage. To have the majority of your family burned into ash, and yet to still stand tall, carrying their goodness and their memory forward. Ted didn’t dwell on it, but it was part of him, whether spoken or not.

Our friendship grew in a way I didn’t expect. He started reading my Substack and would send me long, thoughtful notes. Not just, “Nice piece.” But pages. He’d tell me how something moved him, how it stirred memories, and then he’d share his own stories in return. He was moved most by my essays on Israel, and even more by the ways I would describe creativity.

Ted was, in his own way, a true artist—his creativity was in making people’s homes more comfortable and more beautiful. But also in the way he served, the way he acknowledged people for whatever their positive attributes were.

We talked about grandchildren—we both had them, both adored them. We shared coffee. He actually got me into coffee, bringing his favorite beans and his best coffee-making advice, making sure I did it right. He wrote me notes. Beautiful, tender, insightful notes.

There was a universe Ted and I built together, one of those small, intimate ones that appear later in life and feel as though they’d been waiting for you all along.
And then—one phone call, and it was gone.

All of this makes me think about time. It’s the oldest lesson, the most obvious. And yet it’s the one I keep needing to learn over and over again: time is all we have. Health, family, aliveness. That’s the gift.

And it’s so easily obscured by all the little distractions. By the scheduling, the errands, the endless chatter of the routine world. Today, just hours away from his funeral, I feel with great intensity how fragile it all is. How each hour could be the last one you share with someone. How each cup of coffee, each laugh, each note or conversation is more sacred than we allow ourselves to admit.

Ted gave me a model. He lived to help others. That’s what I want to carry forward. Not as a pious statement, but as a practical, daily choice: Who am I helping? Where am I giving my time? What am I doing with this short life I’ve been given?

Today, my wife and I will head north to the San Fernando Valley for his funeral. I’ll stand among his family, his friends, the people whose lives he touched in countless ways. And I’ll take up the shovel. In Jewish tradition, when you bury someone, you don’t just stand by. You help cover them. You take the shovel, you place the dirt, you listen as it falls heavy onto the wood.

I will do that for Ted. With each shovelful of earth, I will hear it land like a drum. And with each beat, I’ll remember him. The sound will echo not only the past—the man he was, the family he came from, the losses he carried—but also the future. A reminder of what I can yet do with the time that remains.

This next part is just for you, Ted.

Ted, I didn’t think much of you at first. That was my blindness, my incuriosity. But God, in His strange and merciful way, gave me the gift of seeing you for who you were before it was too late. You were, in the truest sense, a mensch. A person whose very presence made our life better.
And so, I will remember you.

For you, I will try to be a little more like you. For you, as an elevation of your neshama,your Godly spirit, I will keep asking myself:
What am I doing with my time?
Who am I helping?
Where am I giving?
Each question, each act of kindness, will be another drumbeat, another echo of the life you lived and the grace you brought to the world.

A world so in need of grace.
May your memory be a blessing.