There are people who live loudly—always in motion, always surrounded—and then there are those who move through life with a kind of quiet and profoundly introspective precision. Aaron was this second kind.
He didn’t chase attention, didn’t accumulate accolades. What he did collect were ideas. He built a life on education, knowledge, reason, and thoughtful clarity. He celebrated teaching, mentored, worked with diligence and pride. In nearly four decades of knowing him, I never saw him take a shortcut. At the end he took only two days off work—two—not from fear of rest, I think, but because he knew exactly what mattered to him.
He never married. Never settled down in the traditional sense. Not out of lack, but by choice. His days were full—of purpose, of structure, of a kind of intellectual devotion that rarely draws headlines but quietly shapes the world. He offered his mind, his time, his sound standards. That was his way of loving.
When the cancer came, it didn’t take long to outpace medicine. Stage 4, aggressive, clear in its intent. He approached it the way he approached most things: directly, without drama, with eyes open.
He chose a legal and self-administered exit, surrounded by a small circle of family and others he loved and who accepted his decision without needing to agree with it. That was important to him—not to be debated, but to be respected. And we did.
When the moment came, I was told he left us while watching WALL-E.
Not a documentary. Not something cerebral or profound. A Pixar movie.
But WALL-E, as anyone who’s really watched it knows, isn’t just a children’s film. It’s about loneliness. About persistence. About the quiet dignity of doing your job even when no one is left behind to care. About offering love when there’s no guarantee it will be returned. And about what it means to be broken and come back—not as a miracle, but as a flicker.
I'm not sure why he chose that film. But I think I understand.
In the story, Earth has been abandoned. A small robot—WALL-E—continues cleaning up, cube by cube. He finds meaning in the smallest things: a boot, a lightbulb, a seedling growing through dust. He preserves them. Not because anyone told him to. Because they mattered.
Then Eve arrives. Fast. Distant. Mission-focused.
He offers her the plant. She doesn’t understand. Then she does.
Aaron never had an Eve. No partner sat beside him at the end. But I think he saw himself in that robot: doing the work, collecting the beauty, continuing the task. Not waiting for applause. Just offering, even if no one answered.
Above Earth, humans have drifted into inertia. Softened by convenience. Disconnected. But contact returns. Eyes meet. A screen turns off. People stand again.
And near the end, WALL-E is crushed. Reassembled, but blank. His self gone.
Then Eve takes his hand.
And in that moment—without words—he remembers.
It’s not a grand transformation. It’s not religion. But it’s something. A spark of recognition over what he'd left behind.
Aaron wasn’t a man of faith. But I think he believed in return. In the spark. In the possibility that something could be restored—not by force, but by care.
That’s the moment he chose to leave on.
The credits rolled, the music faded, he slipped away.
No drama. No fear. Just a clear path, chosen and followed.
We miss him.
And we carry what he left: not just his work, but his way—his belief that attention is love, that clarity is mercy, and that even in the end, you can still offer something beautiful.
Even if Eve never came.