RIP Ben White

1972-2024

Mid-January 1988. A Washington real-estate developer with Kirk White for his lawyer handed our dad an envelope, after they finished talking about something. The envelope contained two tickets to Super Bowl XXII. [This is my eulogy at my brother’s funeral this past Saturday.]

Dad wasn’t exactly sure what to do. He had too much work and couldn’t travel anytime soon. And how could he take just one of us sons, and not the other, anyway?  He came home and pulled the envelope out of his jacket pocket and brandished the tickets in front of mom and Ben and me, presenting them as a kind of problem to be solved.

The game would occur in San Diego, California. One of the teams was the Denver Broncos, with Dan Elway as the quarterback. The other team had Doug Williams. Back in those days, the name of that other team began with the letter R.

Anyone see the first Lord of the Rings movie? There’s a scene where they’re all sitting around, trying to figure out who will travel to Mordor to cast the Ring of Power into Mount Doom. There’s a lot of fretting about how much trouble it will be. Then the hobbits pipe up and say, “We’ll take it. We’ll take the ring!”

There weren’t any hobbits in the kitchen on McKinley Street. But we two high-school boys delivered the neighborhood newspapers every morning, and therefore had some airplane-ticket money in our pockets. “We’ll take the tickets!”

Now, a good number of people here knew Ann White. In fact, a considerable number of people here knew Ann White well enough to live in fear of the woman.

Ben convinced her. He convinced her to let us have the tickets, and to fly to California by ourselves. I did my part in the convincing, of course. I pledged my entire future that we would both be in our proper classrooms by the first bell the morning after the game. We would take the red-eye back at mightnight and get to school on time. Mom trusted me that far.

But Ben is the one who really convinced her to let us do it. He convinced the formidable Academic Dean of Edmund Burke School to make a decision that would probably get a parent arrested for reckless child endangerment these days. As we all know, Ben White knew how to make his excitement infectious. He saw a chance for something great. He stretched out his hand. He took you along.

We just heard from St. Paul about the groaning of creation. Creation groaning under the weight of apparent futility.

People suffer. People die. Ben suffered. Ben died. And now we suffer.

We all know a light in this world has gone out. A light of truth-seeking, love, fun, and kindness. A light so strong it had an intense force, an interior force that moved other things, by a power of will. When he got an idea in his head, Ben White had a will that could move a mountain.

Sports teams live by the enthusiasm of the fans. The Yankees will never win more than 80 games in a season ever again. The Washington Football Team might as well just hang it up completely. You know they even tweeted it out, on the official Commanders account? “We lost one of our most passionate.”

Indeed you did, Commanders. We all did. We have lost one of our most passionate.

Passionately in love with wisdom and truth. Passionately in love with Jacob and Rafi. [Please click here to make a donation to the college fund for the boys, if you can.] Passionately in love with Sara. Zealous for all his dear friends. Groaning with eagerness that all the ones he loved would be safe, and be happy, and thrive. He groaned with eagerness that everyone would be safe, and be happy, and thrive. Everyone. Everyone except Dan Snyder.

Well, and maybe everyone except one other person, too. My brother groaned with eagerness for the happiness and vitality of everyone around him. For himself? That was more complicated.

Thus we weep here today. Thus we groan here today.

…We grew up singing hymns, in our family. You might think to yourself, ‘I can’t quite picture Ben holding a hymnal and belting out divine praises like a choirboy.’ But he did it; we did it–every Sunday of our entire young lives. That’s what our family did, and I still do. And if you were at my mother’s funeral last fall, and paid attention to my brother, you saw him do it then. He sang out mommy’s favorite hymns. Benjamin White was about as Jewish-adjacent as you can get.* But he lived a died a Christian man.

This day has come way too soon. But Ben did make me promise that when the day of his funeral did come, that we would have our mother’s favorite hymn.

A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing;

our helper he, amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing.

For still our ancient foe does seek to work us woe;

his craft and power are great, and armed with cruel hate,

on earth is not his equal.

 

Did we in our own strength confide, our striving would be losing,

were not the right Man on our side, the Man of God’s own choosing.

You ask who that may be? Christ Jesus, it is he;

Lord Sabaoth his name, from age to age the same;

and he must win the battle.

 

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* Ben has two Jewish sons, was married to two Jewish women at different times in his life, and died in love with a third.