As the setting sun filtered through the stained-glass windows of the University Chapel yesterday, students, faculty and family members gathered to share stories and honor the memory of Alexander Adam '07. He died at his home Jan. 25 at age 23.
Adam attended the University for his freshman year and most of his sophomore fall before withdrawing to undergo treatment for Ewing's sarcoma, a rare form of bone cancer.
Following an opening hymn and readings from the Bible, Adam's friend Jonathan Miller '07 acted out the narrative of "Crushed," a story Adam wrote about the awkwardness of seducing fellow actors on stage.
"He had a talent for creating the internal monologue of everyone he met," Julia Cain '07 said in an email. "He was a great storyteller." Cain acted with Adam three years ago in "Playing in the Dark," a senior thesis production in which Adam played a white undergraduate confronting the challenges of a gay interracial relationship.
Raleigh Martin '08, one of Adam's freshman year hallmates, remembered Adam's composure. He recalled their trip to California for a geology seminar. The two got lost on a hike and ended up at the rim of a crater with a steep drop on each side. Though Martin said he had an acute fear of heights, Adam remained calm.
"I expected him to get impatient as I crawled along, petrified to stand up on two feet and risk falling," he said. "However, Alex was extremely patient and helpful."
He also spoke of Adam's genuine interest in others, a trait of his that many of his friends emphasized during the memorial. "He always listened intently and took a genuine interest in what I had to say," Martin said.
Jennifer Schanbacher '04 remembered Adam's enthusiasm for his role in her senior thesis production.
"It was a big role that few would see him play, but I sometimes thought he took an even greater interest in my work than I did," she said.
Nick Adam '08 said his brother Alex affected the lives of those he met, though he never realized it.
"He often told me that he had 'like three friends' at school," Nick Adam said, "but within minutes of my arrival at Princeton, two beautiful girls were leaning out of a fourth floor window screaming Alex's name at me."
That influence became even more apparent as word spread of Adam's illness.
"The moment in which Alex's impact became clearest to me, however, was when a young woman whom I had never seen before ran up to me and burst into tears," he said. "She had just heard that Alex had been diagnosed with Ewing's sarcoma."
Teng Kuan Ng '05, who was Adam's residential adviser during his summer at Princeton-in-Beijing, said that though he didn't know Adam well, he remembered that Adam "had very sensitive and gentle eyes."
Rockefeller College Master Maria DiBattista read a statement about Adam from Joyce Carol Oates, his creative writing professor during the spring of his freshman year.
She praised his work, calling it "sharp-edged, unexpectedly corrosive and very funny." Though the workshop included many talented writers, she recalled that his work stood out.
"I remember telling him during the workshop, as I don't believe that I have ever told any other student in such circumstances, before or since, that he could have a career as a playwright or a writer of first-rate television scripts," Oates said.
Near the close of the service, Associate Dean of Religious Life Paul Raushenbush gave the Litany of Hope prayer. He read, "Forgetting nothing, let us move forward in hope."
Nikki Federman '07 — who ate breakfast with Adam many mornings before he went to 9 a.m. introductory Chinese during their freshman year — played a J.S. Bach suite on the cello.
Federman emphasized that the piece was written in C Major, rather than a somber Minor chord.
"He hated people fussing over him, so I wanted to play a hopeful piece," she said.
Despite Adam's passing, those who knew him have remarked of the permanence of their memories of him.
"It is astonishing to me to realize that Alex is no longer among us, since he looms so distinctly in my memory," Oates wrote.
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