AEH | LVN, on being 50

Dear Len,

Periodically—and especially in the face of certain round numbers—one looks back and asks, how have I contributed? Yet you, in your profound humility, have a tendency to overlook or quickly forget what good you’ve done. So, let me count the ways:

You have written beautiful poetry.

You have inserted yourself into a silence that was just about to make someone anxious.

You have battled relentlessly with big bosses to win better wages and benefits for workers.

You have changed minds—others’ and, more impressively, your own.

You have written insightfully about Orlando, Medoro, and Bourne.

You have made others feel at ease when they would have felt awkward or out of place. This is no small gift. It is a beneficence you bestow more often than anyone I know.

You have made people forget themselves and remember others.

You have made people forget others and remember themselves.

You have made me laugh so uncontrollably I actually had to stand up and leave a darkened theatre, a swanky restaurant, and a farm.

You have brought friends together, and held them.

For all of this, and more, thank you.

Aaron