Memorial Service

Saturday, March 25, 2017 

New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute 

Delivered by Dr. Adam Libow 

photo by Karen Wise

My last encounter with Dan is much clearer at this point in my mind than my first. My last, as it was for many of us gathered here today, was at his bedside at Memorial Sloane Kettering Cancer Center, surrounded by beloved friends and family. My first is a little harder to pinpoint. And I imagine that each of us have a distinct, if perhaps somewhat similarly hazy recollection of meeting Dan. And while I can tell you that I definitely met Dan for the first time in mid-August of 2000 at Weill Cornell Med School, I can’t exactly tell you whether I met Dan in an elevator in Olin hall or washing up in a common bathroom or trying to break a sweat at the gym. But the experience of knowing and loving Dan is such that once you’ve met him you feel like you’ve known him forever. It really is a kind of love. To know Dan is to love him and to love him is to feel loved by him in return. It’s an experience that if it weren’t so nearly universal I might have hesitated to even mention but I think in a lot of ways it represents an essential aspect of who Dan was and who Dan will always remain to be for each and all of us. 

But before Dan was ours, all of ours, he actually was someone from somewhere. Born on April 12, 1976 in the East Falls section of Philadelphia as the middle child of Leslie and Terrence McMenamin, Dan counted Matthew as his big brother and Lauren as his younger sister. Attending Friends Select for Elementary and Middle School, where his parents met as students, Dan excelled as a student and went on to be admitted to the prestigious magnet school Central High School. In addition to being an exceptional student, running cross country track and taking all the AP courses available, I understand that one of the true driving forces behind his excellence was his Grandma "Mimi", who would stay up late into the night with him helping him perfect his high school papers. 

Dan and Mimi's efforts were obviously quite successful as Dan went on to gain acceptance to Cornell University, where in the late summer of 1994 he set out on a path toward a mechanical engineering degree. But his curiosity in the functioning of the mind and a knack for biological science ultimately led him to become a neurobiology major. For his final three years at Cornell, Dan lived in the Von Cramm co-op community, becoming its president in his senior year and also, I understand, taking up among other things, the drums and guitar. 

After college Dan did a two-year stint of research at Mass General Hospital and then made his way back to Cornell, this time for med school in August of 2000. It was then that I probably, possibly met Dan for the first time through his first-year roommate. Dan's roommate was an athletic-type, clean-cut, handsome - a future plastic surgeon. Dan, if recollection serves me, was rather more scruffy, cerebral, sporty-to-a-point and yet artistic, thoughtful, kind and very cool. He and his roommate couldn't have been more opposite and yet Dan, as he has done so many times in his life, found commonality and forged a friendship. If it was the first, it was the first of many for Dan, as once word got out about Dan or “McMenamin” or “McMens,” as many of us called him, he was a very sought after commodity around 68th and York. He carried his Philly heritage and his Cornell pedigree with him in an unassuming way that made him immediately and immensely popular among all of our classmates. 

Dan and I both entered med school having earlier harbored fantasies of careers in research. And we had both learned a bit of the hard way that if we were going to taste science in our careers it probably wasn't going to be through the laboratory. It wasn't that the lab wasn't cool. A number of Dan's closest - and coolest - friends, several of whom are here today, have gone on to pursue extremely successful careers as scientists. But the choice of medicine and the clinical encounter offered Dan an opportunity for something different. The chance to think and engage and, perhaps, directly help change another human being. It was an irresistible opportunity. And for a guy who worked for every opportunity, who washed dishes as a high school student at Zake's Cakes (who kindly have supplied us with cookies today in honor of Dan) and who picked up the extra summer job in college so as to be able to stay on campus, the opportunity to change another person's life for the better while reaching toward the next level was part of the immense appeal of becoming a physician. 

Now, I don't want to give you the impression that Dan was your typical medical student. He wasn't. Armed with an impending biochemistry exam the following morning I might have, without much resistance, approached Dan with the latest Antonio Damasio book on the nature of human consciousness and engaged him in a lengthy discussion as to how well Damasio's 'theory of mind' mapped on to the Freudian unconscious. Yes, it was probably obvious - even then - that we'd be heading toward psychiatry. But make no mistake, he also knew his biochem. So if you wanted smart and you wanted thoughtful, you wanted Dan. 

And you wanted Dan in other ways, too. Living in Manhattan dormitories in our early to mid-twenties, med school was a bit of a second coming-of-age opportunity for both of us, probably all of us. If mornings were slogging off to class to make a small-group presentation on the molecular mechanisms of myocarditis, then afternoons were an opportunity to recharge and evenings - some of them, at least - were a chance to let loose. And yet there was Dan, up for and wanting all of it. "Hey, Libow, I've got some turkey sausage. Wanna cook it up?" I'd throw on my shoes, head down to his apartment and start boiling the pasta while Dan heated the frying pan. It was these simple exchanges - these offerings - that were quintessential Dan. Dan was always offering you something. In my case, it was often food or simply his ear. But his heart and his head were always available too. It was an amazing quality. Even though I was hungry, I wasn't coming down for the food. I was coming down for Dan. Because to be with Dan was to be understood, to be heard, to see the world just a little differently. It was refreshing, it was warm. And once you tasted that experience with Dan you would crave it forever. 

In med school it felt like there would be no end to our Turkey sausage days. We ate and we cooked. And we went to class. And occasionally we even made it to the gym. One of the best choices that several of us, including Dan, made was a spring break trip to Turkey - the country - at the end of our first year. It was early 2001, six months before the world would change, and we headed off to Istanbul with our backpacks and passports. I believe it may have been Dan's first time out of the country. And it was unforgettable. We saved money - and time - by traveling each night by bus to a new location. Historic cities, ancient ruins, abandoned temples, pristine beaches and a Mediterranean sea to swallow us up. We happened to arrive just before peak tourist season and so we all had the strange impression that each city and town we stopped in was waiting specifically for us as we were on many occasions the only people there. It was magical. And for med students on a very tight budget it was breathtaking as we tasted what opportunity and even abundance could feel like. I think the trip moved Dan. Moved Dan to become quite an international traveler. And inspired Dan with what the world might have to offer. 

To be with Dan in these moments is to want to be with Dan forever. 

And, even then - even then - we almost believed that the days would just go on and on and never come to an end. But as med school progressed the realities of lives and decisions began to slowly - and sometimes rather quickly and even painfully - set in. Dan and I - and about ten or twelve of our classmates - (I think it may have been a record number) chose psychiatry. And as our clinical worlds began to take shape, Dan and I seemed to travel in nearly parallel but yet separate paths. Dan followed his passion for psychiatry down to NYU and then went on to pursue a fellowship in substance abuse at Columbia. He also became a psychoanalytic candidate at Columbia. Dan would open a practice, where he saw an extremely diverse group of patients that challenged him and I think gave him great pride. As you might expect from knowing Dan he was an extremely dedicated and talented clinician. We would refer patients to each other and I would cherish the phone calls when Dan wanted to talk about a case. Suddenly, we were back in med school - thinking, pondering, considering a case - and this time it was for real. A real life, a real problem, a real clinical dilemma. And I think Dan drew tremendous satisfaction from his work and I can only imagine that if he found a way to give to his patients what he has given to his friends and loved ones he will have influenced and aided them in deep and enduring ways. 

As the past year dawned upon us, the reality - or at least the distinct possibility - that there would be another end began to take shape. And yet Dan was determined, as he always has, to fight and to persevere. And with him in that fight was Susie, a remarkable woman and partner for Dan, who would go the entire distance, the unspoken hours, the sleepless nights, the moments of uncertainty with a steady calm, determination and yet love and compassion for not just Dan but for all of those who loved, cared and came near him. For those of us who were often enough a bit outside the day-to-day Dan world in these months it was always reassuring and heartwarming to know that Dan was anything but alone. He had Susie and he had an extremely close network of friends - his extended family of brothers and sisters - friends doubling as medical advisors (yes, that is you, Joe!) and even family who were tending to him, engaging him, loving him. 

I think one reason why for some of us the end - this end - felt so precipitous and even cruel, is that Dan - in his own way - was once again trying to protect US. Yes, US. Dan, to the end, kept his dignity and his fight. He kept his Dan. And that was what he wanted. Both for us and for him. 

As I was saying goodbye to Dan on his last day, the setting felt so familiar. 68th and York Avenue. The same coordinates as our med school. The same hospital, even, as several of our med school rotations - Dan and I had doctored or at least student-doctored in the same building, perhaps even caring for patients with the same illness. Dan had returned home in a way. When I left his room, I explained, among a few other private words, that I had to head back to "see our people and do our work". And then I returned to my office. When my patient arrived, I looked across and there was a young man in his early twenties, from a place outside of New York, with a scruffy, 3-day beard and a twinkle in his eye. He sat down and began to tell me about his dilemma: medicine or science? He wanted to talk to people and thought that a career in psychoanalysis and psychiatry would appeal to his desire to connect and relate with people. Yet he had trained in biochemistry and wasn't sure whether he ought to attempt a more academic career. He thought he could make a difference in people's lives. 

While Dan has left us in one way, each time I have been around his friends and loved ones this week I've had the distinct feeling of being with Dan once again. In fact, in a very unique way, I think Dan found a way to choose people who in our aggregate somehow represent different but yet complementary sides of a consistent, genuine, authentic character. Dan will not only be remembered but he will be felt and lived and experienced, by all of us.