Uncle Paul eulogy

The life of Joseph Lawrence Chow was a beautiful life and “a life well lived”.

The last time I saw Joseph was two years ago almost to the day. Joe had developed an interest in golf, so I bribed him with a round of golf to squeeze myself onto his schedule. The golf was not memorable but our conversation was. Joe had just graduated from Amherst College and he was leaving soon to join the Peace Corp in East Africa. We had time to discuss many things but we spent most of our time talking about the Peace Corp. He shared with me how much he would miss his family and friends, but he was thrilled to have the chance to immerse himself in a completely different culture. He thought he would love teaching and could be a good teacher. He mentioned that there’d be no golf and probably no piano, so he’d spend his spare time reading and there’d be plenty of opportunity for music and golf when he returned home. Joe admitted that while he was very excited and absolutely committed, he was also nervous because he knew that this would be more difficult than anything he had ever done before.

He was a happy, confident young man, full of purpose, comfortable in his own skin and optimistic about the future. Had I not known and loved Joseph his entire life as his uncle, I know I would have loved and admired him as a friend. I remember feeling very proud of him as I watched him bound up the stairs of the Greenwich train station two steps at a time when I dropped him off that evening.

As many of you know, Joseph was a high academic achiever and he was an accomplished pianist and organist. In any group of people Joseph might be among the smartest or the most musically talented. Both as a scholar and a musician Joe was very driven to excel, determined to achieve the highest grades and board scores or play the most technically difficult music. But that was only one dimension of Joseph. He was able to be passionate even when he did not personally excel. Swimming was an important part of Joe’s life. He was a serious and good swimmer but rarely the star. In fact, as a varsity swimmer at Amherst he was probably among the slowest on the team, but that was okay because for Joseph swimming was always more about the shared experience and camaraderie of being on the team than about winning and losing or individual achievement.


Chances are that Joseph might not have become the remarkable young man he became without many of you who have gathered in this church to honor and remember him today. You see, Joseph had a big advantage in life- he never had to wonder if he was loved. In fact, you could say that his life was a love story. Not a “boy meets girl” love story, but a love story about someone who is loved by many from the moment he is born. His anchor and greatest source of love was his family- his parents, Donna & Ray; his brothers, Daniel and Kyle; his grandparents Ruby, Leo, Joe & Larry; and his many Chow & Robertson uncles, aunts and cousins. But as Ray and Donna have said so often, Joseph was blessed to also be loved by so many wonderful people beyond his own family- teachers, coaches & mentors; colleagues, classmates & teammates; friends and neighbors- who touched and inspired him; nurtured, supported and encouraged him throughout his life.

Because so much had been given to him by so many, it was second nature to Joseph to give to others. Always kind, compassionate and generous, he used his own gifts and talents to give- by playing piano for terminally ill patients at hospice or coaching young aspiring swimmers or teaching math and science in East Africa.

Joseph spent the last two years of his life giving back as a Peace Corp volunteer. By all accounts he was an extraordinary teacher who was loved and valued by his students and his community. Watching the recording of the memorial service held for Joe in Tanzania it was clear that during the past two years Joseph had continued to go from strength to strength in his life. On the last full day of his life, Joseph was with a fellow Peace Corp volunteer. Since she was a recent arrival in Tanzania, he was anxious for her to know how rich and rewarding his Peace Corp experience had been but he also wanted to tell her how wonderful his family was, how excited he was about going home and how he was planning to go to medical school. When Ray shared this with me, I couldn’t help being reminded of my conversation with Joe two years ago and I took some comfort knowing Joe was still brimming with the excitement and optimism that I remembered so clearly.




Joseph leaving us so suddenly, so young is unbearably sad. I don’t know that any of us will ever be able to understand why Joseph was taken. Some things are impossible to explain, impossible to reconcile. There will always be an emptiness, a hole that can’t be filled, reminders of what could have been and should have been. But I hope that in this time of terrible grief, all of Joseph’s family and friends [particularly Donna, Ray, Daniel and Kyle] who loved him so much can take some solace and someday even rejoice that Joseph was a beautiful person who lived a happy and deeply meaningful life.

As has been said, “If you can’t have both, a good life is better than a long life”… Joseph Chow’s life was a good life, a life well lived.