In Remembrance of a Mentor

A Death in the Family

June 9th, 2025

There’s a stillness in the air. The room made dark from the grey sky beyond the walls of my home library, obscuring the early morning light. No life stirs from the overhead lamp. My desk lit only by the standing lamp to the right of my desk. My girlfriend sits to my left, at her desk, entrenched in her own work. Our cat, Yakutia, lay asleep in her window perch to my right. And our dog, Poe, asleep as well upon the living room couch, alone, on the other side of the house.

    Where no life stirs, within the thick, oppressive silence of loss.

    And as I sit here, pondering what to write and the best way to write it, I’m staring out at the trees beyond our home, standing still as statues. And just as lifeless. No creaking of swaying branches, none of Nature’s kinetic lifeforce to be seen. And it’s no wonder, with the news I recently received…when on May 28th, a college wide email arrived in my inbox alerting me of the tragic death of Rebecca Cole Heinowitz, a beloved professor and mentor to me.

    I’ve become something of an expert in dealing with death. Much of my life, but thankfully no longer, I’ve stumbled my way toward the casket. Wishing for death, dreaming of suicide, anything to relinquish me from the pain of being bipolar. Of how excruciating it is to think and feel, when one’s life operates along dual poles. And then with the death of my best friend on June 7th, 2023, when I was destroyed, my soul annihilated, nothing left of me…the one silver lining was that little could ever hurt like that again. And I was right—though I’ve now learned that there are different kinds of pain, of grief.

    I first met Professor Heinowitz on my first day at Bard College. So anxious I insisted on being fifteen minutes early, I made my way up the creaking steps of Aspinwall, where my British Romanticism was class was held. Entering a room full of empty seats, I was the first to arrive—aside from a woman at the far end of the table, books sprawled out in front of her.

    She was diligently writing in a notebook, while glancing occasionally to an open laptop. Her short, black curly hair dangling just above her dark horn-rimmed glasses. There was something about her, a sharpness, radiating from her. I didn’t know why, at the time. At first, I didn’t realize she the professor, for in most of my classes throughout college, the professors were usually last to arrive. And besides, I was an older student, and I figured, she could be too. And as the room filled with other students, no one behaved in any way that would alert me to her being the professor either. But then, she spoke.

    It was immediately clear what the tone of that class would be for the entire semester. Sitting here now, in this dark room, thinking upon my time in that class—its as if the lingering storm clouds have parted, with blinding sunlight breaking through. The passion she had! The way it radiated from her, rippling palpably through the air, affected everyone in the room. Her insight, her immense intellect, so magnetic, so thickly concentrated you could touch and taste it. Getting to sit there, listening to her speak about the Romantic literary movement, of the romantics being in awe of the sublime, of their pursuit of truth and knowledge in Nature as opposed to finding it within religion, within God—it was an honor listening to her, bathing in her illuminating intellect, so intoxicating that it converted me immediately. From then on and now and forever, I am a student of the Romantic school of thought, I am forever a student of Rebecca Cole Heinowitz.

    In fact, and she didn’t know this, but about a third of the way through that semester, I panicked. As I left class, baffled and in awe of the conversation that day, as I was after every session of class, having my mind blown, my understanding of literature and the confines of critical thought radically expanded, I had a horrifying realization: In just a handful of weeks, this class will end and I might never get taught by Professor Heinowitz again!

    This was unacceptable. For her class was life-changing; it set my career as an author down a path it would never veer from. I needed more of it, I needed more of Rebecca Cole Heinowitz. So, I left class that day and rushed straight to the campus center and into the school store. Clinging to the wall of books by Bard professors, eyes frantically reading the spine of each, I found a single copy of her book, Rewriting Conquest: Spanish America and British Romanticism, 1777-1826. It was $85 and I was a poor college student—I bought it without hesitation.

    I’m sorry to say I haven’t read it yet, nor her poetry book Daily Chimera which I also bought a couple years later. Though that’s okay. Because for now, with her no longer here, they can serve their purpose; to allow me to hear Cole’s voice again, to bask in her illuminating intellect on a rainy day when I need to feel her inspiration once more.

    But thankfully the conclusion of that class wasn’t the end of my interaction with Cole, but very much just the beginning.

    This won’t mean anything to you, dear reader, but I’m writing this blog post with the same structure and style as the journal entries in my memoir, The Plague Journal. It won’t mean anything to you, because as of this post, that book has yet to be published. Though I bring this up because I wouldn’t have ever written that book if not for Cole Heinowitz.

    In a lot of ways, the first part of the book belongs to her as well. The insight she brought to the project, her enthusiasm for it, how she, after reading a particular line, proclaimed, “This is poetry!” The passion she felt for this book and for me, distilled in me a confidence I had never known before. Again, that fierce, illuminating intellect of hers bled past the confines of her mind and body, and into me. Suddenly, I was a better writer. Through her guidance and support and love for what I was doing, I felt like I could do anything.

    By then I had already begun going over to her cabin in Boiceville, NY—I had started dog sitting for her about halfway through that first semester. When asking the class if anyone would like to watch her dog, every hand in the room sprung up with the same passionate enthusiasm we felt radiating from Cole. It was likely do to my age and maturity, but I’m glad she chose me.

    From there, I bonded more and more with her and her husband and their dog, and eventually, I was alerted to the need for an extra credit on my transcript and was advised to reach out to a professor to request an independent study course. My first and only thought was Cole.

    She agreed, and in requesting to make it as easy as possible for both us, she suggested a simple premise; she asked about my hobbies outside of reading and writing, and I mentioned that I love hiking, that Nature soothes me. An interest I would find that she and I shared. With that settled, she provided me a copy of Thoreau’s essay, “Walking,” and told me to go on a hike, read the essay, and then write something, anything, based on the blended experience of hiking and reading.

    What I produced was the beginning of a memoir, though neither of us knew it then. With each week I would hike a different trail and write another piece. As organic as Nature herself, a narrative was slowly building, a story which illuminated my inner struggle, my pains and emptiness born from my being bipolar, and being alone during the advent of COVID-19. This was significant not only for the sake of the book being written, but through the voyeuristic pages, Cole got to know me better and better, and in turn I got to know her better. And it was then I realized why I felt such an allure from her. I had an inkling that she dealt with something similar to my bipolar disorder (details were never exchanged, though from attending her funeral service virtually, I know that she indeed suffered from at least depression, as was mentioned by her mother). So, the writing of this book was as therapeutic as it was a deepening of my bond with Cole. I could it feel it, that inexplicable deepening of a connection between two people, an illumination of their understanding of one another.

     And this connection meant the world to me, as this period of my life was one of the loneliest I’ve ever experienced. My family and I weren’t on great terms, and we spoke very little, if ever. I didn’t have any friends, or at least not ones that took the time to see me. And when COVID hit, the eviscerating weight of my isolation was on the brink of killing me.

    But it didn’t, because of Cole, who through my bonding with her, her husband, her dog, I was given a new family—she told me as such, with a smile, sad but full of feeling, after I revealed to her the broken tether to my actual family. She included me in hers, and made me feel whole again.

    A few months ago, I had asked her to blurb the memoir. A publisher had requested the manuscript and wanted advance praise for it as well. Cole wanted to blurb it, but there was a time restraint. I told her not to worry, and I would let her know once it was published, and that I thought she would love what I went on to do with it. She told me, “I have no doubt.”

    I wish she was still here.

    There is so much I must thank her for. Bonding with her helped me survive not only my loneliness, my mental illness, but she also simply helped me survive my time at Bard. Even the title of my memoir, The Plague Journal, was her doing. She had said, “What you are doing with this project, this Plague Journal, is truly special and I think people would enjoy this. You should get it published, perhaps through a small press.”

    But that’s not all, as she was a part of my senior project board. I didn’t request her to be, as in the face of her immense intellect, I was scared. What if this brilliant woman, who I respect so highly, hated my book? The thought paralyzed me, but by chance she was assigned to me anyway (or perhaps she chose me? I’ll never know). But when meeting with my board, after they had reviewed what was the first half of my upcoming debut novel, The Monsters Among Us, I was overwhelmed by the sheer adoration and praise they gave it. Cole included, who said, and I’ll never forget these words, “In all my years of teaching, I’ve never read such an extraordinary piece of work.”

    I was overjoyed, but dumbfounded. Cole Heinowitz was an actual genius. For her to speak so highly of my novel honors and baffles me even today. I hope she knew how much her words impacted me. For without them I might not have gotten to where I am now. Publishing is a cold, uncertain and precarious industry. Two years went by before the book was contracted. And the desolation, the possibility of failure weighed heavily upon me through it all. But I was able to persevere because of Cole’s words.

    I could still write more, but this has gone on longer than I had anticipated. And rightfully so, for the loss of Professor Cole Heinowitz is a severe one, and I mourn her and for the future Bard students who will never get to take a Cole Heinowitz course. They will be profoundly missing out.

    There are certainly different kinds of grief. While this doesn’t hurt in the same way as when I lost my best friend, losing a mentor leaves its own kind of void, a craterous absence within my chest. I wanted her to see me become a published author. And I dreamt of publishing my memoir as well and getting to converse with her about it over coffee, at her cabin, by the edge of the Esopus Creek. Our dogs playing, rummaging around in the dirt and grass as we evaluate the work. A fantasy that will no longer come true. Though I know she would be proud.

    I have no doubt.