As many of you know, Max loved the movies. In the last few weeks I’ve come to find out why – he was a filmmaker. And since I’m an attorney, I’ll prove it to you.

Since you were a filmmaker Max, and since I aspired to become one earlier in my life, my tribute to you takes the form of scenes form a movie – you might say the movie of Max’s life – as seen from his father’s point of view.

SCENE ONE –

Max was the happiest baby I could ever imagine. I’m sure he cried from time to time, just like other babies, and got fussy and difficult. But my overwhelming recollection of Max during his first 3 years of existence is of a child who wore a continual smile on his sweet little face. I reminded his mom the other day about the time she and I vacationed with Max in Bar Harbor, Maine, when Max was just a few months old. I woke up rather early, just after the sun came up. I looked over at Max in his crib. There he was, already awake, beaming that sunny smile of his. I must have stared at him for a good 15 minutes, both of us grinning form ear to ear - not even cooing or saying a word so we wouldn’t wake his mom. When I reminded Lisa of this, she said: “Tom, didn’t you admit to waking him up just so you could play with him?” Maybe, maybe I did, I honestly can’t remember now. But it wasn’t to play with him, Lisa – it was just to see that sunny smile.

SCENE 2 -- This is a 45-second montage sequence in which we have a series of scenes form Max’s childhood, each one flashing across the screen in a dizzying crescendo, intercut with pages filled with dates from a calendar, each falling away to indicate the passage of time. Real Hollywood stuff. Images of schools, summer camp, days at Oqunquit Beach building sand castles, a Bar Mitzvah, a high school graduation….

SCENE 3 – Hofstra University, Fall of 1999. The Hofstra Years. My God ….. we’re barely minutes into this movie and it’s almost over, just 2 short years ago! But … I simply had to cut to the chase. I wanted to share with you the pure joy that has been the last 2 years of my experience of Max B. Kolb.

SCENE 3 begins with a flashback. During the years that Max attended his beloved sleepaway camp, I tried to encourage him to learn tennis. It’s a game I’d always loved since childhood, and I hoped he would too.

Max could never seem to get himself there, and as the camp years went by, he resisted ever more strenuously --until I simply gave up on tennis and focused on other things with him.

Imagine my delight when, around a year ago, home from college, Max expressed an interest in hitting the old tennis ball around with Dad, just to check out this tennis thing he’d been resisting all these years.

These images slowly fade, as the image of a little island off Key West, Florida, comes into view. It is January, 2001. Just 3 short months ago. A ferry boat pulls up to the dock at the Marriott Resort on Sunset Key. The 5 family members – Max, his father, his step-mom Diane, and his two older brothers, Danny and Alan – the “Wellesley family”, step ashore to begin a five-day family vacation. We had our little bungalow, the ocean, the beach, sailboats, a swimming pool – and two tennis courts. Every morning the dad awakes at 7 AM, awaiting the first of his children to arise, whereupon he cajoles this mostly willing victim onto the tennis court to challenge his dad. A little while later, the other 2 boys arrive on Court 2. After appropriate warm-ups, the dad and his youngest son Max team-up to challenge the two older brothers in doubles.

They play doubles, in another Hollywood MONTAGE SEQUENCE. A flurry of tennis shots… high fives… pumping of fists… laughter – sheer joy in a father’s heart, in a family’s heart.

It’s no secret to many of you -- well, now it’s no longer a secret to any of you, that despite the fact that since the tender age of 5 Max had had extended to him an open invitation to be a full fledged member of his Wellesley family, it was difficult for him. Navigating the world of 2 different households can’t be easy for any child. And for the longest time Max found it hard to give us a piece of himself that we so desperately longed for.

Here we FREEZE FRAME ON A CLOSE-UP OF MAX: Racquet poised, ready to strike a forehand. Dear viewer: hold this image in your mind for a moment with me – as Max is poised to hit that forehand.

VOICEOVER: Narrator, dad: “Max you are my ideal doubles partner. You may not yet have the skill, but you have the desire to play this game. This pleases your dad and you know it. No. It’s better even than that – you have the desire to be a full-fledged member of your Wellesley family. We are so happy for you, all of us, that you are finally able to give us the gift of yourself.”

Now unfreeze the image, and Max, the novice tennis player, hits a perfectly placed forehand down the line, into the doubles alley, that goes whizzing past his brother’s ear. Point: Max and dad. If you are a tennis player, and maybe even if you’re not, you know the feeling of hitting that perfect shot. Sometimes you play an entire match just for that one shot. Max, we waited almost your entire lifetime to share that moment with you. It was worth every minute.

For his 20th birthday, barely 2 months ago, I gave Max a brand new tennis racquet and got him lessons with a pro at a nearby tennis facility on Long Island, near the college. I cleared it with him first to make sure it wasn’t too pushy an idea. He loved those lessons and was working on his backhand, he told me, and his serve. We had a date to play tennis on the Sunday I was to see him. The Sunday after the Tuesday that he disappeared.

HERE THE FILM BREAKS VISIBLY in the projection machine. The screen fills with the blinding white light of the bulb. Just as suddenly, the bulb begins to flicker… and then fade. The screen is plunged in darkness. There is silence.

I need you to understand one thing about how I am coping with this terrible, terrible tragedy. As the Rabbis will tell you, this is not the natural order of things: a parent should NEVER have to bury his child.

I do not wish to know the details of my son’s death. If it’s details you want, go read the newspapers. I choose to remember my son’s life, not his death. I choose to remember the many joys he gave me, that he gave to all of us who knew and loved him.

So let me share with you this one last joy.

Let me read an excerpt from the shooting script for the short film by Max Kolb called “Blinding Heather.” It was his final project for his film course this semester. I know he was very proud of this little project.

SCENE ONE: DAYTIME. A STREET.

And here I’ll quote from the script:

“JOHN is a typical love-struck 18 year-old-boy, clad in jeans and a long- sleeve shirt, and wearing a backpack. He is walking home from school. Taking smaller and slower steps than a normal boy his age. He glances at his watch, and then eyes the end of the block. After a few more steps, he repeats this process.

HEATHER the girl of John’s dreams also has on… jeans, a long-sleeve shirt, and a backpack… but somehow makes it look SEXY. She crosses the street at the end of the block. John notices her, and picks up his pace. He then turns the corner, and walks on the other side of the street, but a few steps behind, so as not to catch her eye.” End quote

So here is our shy young man, John, love-struck, as the author says, with a girl named Heather. The girl of his dreams. And she is oh so pretty - she makes jeans and a backpack look sexy. But John is too shy to let her notice him, to let her notice him noticing her.

I don’t want to spoil the story for you so I’ll let you read it for yourself. There are copies for you as you leave the synagogue. [Text of shooting script is attached.]

I just want to tell you how blown away I was when I read this little film script. Granted I’m his father. But this little script, only three pages long, contains a range of emotion -- bravery, tenderness, betrayal, disillusionment, acceptance of one’s faults, acceptance of the faults of others, a longing for intimacy --- the fullness of life.

I’ll give this part away to you without guilt – there’s a happy ending. Max, I am so happy for you – because I now know what you’ve been doing down there at Hofstra these past 2 years. You were busy -- maybe for the first time in your life -- starting to write those happy endings for yourself, starting to believe that you could write those happy endings for yourself.

And how you wrote them! In your academics, you got yourself on the Dean’s list practically from Day One of your Freshman Year – and you stayed there.

In your social life, connecting yourself to other kids, the kids who came here today to pay tribute to you. That little baby with the sunny disposition – now a young adult.

Connecting yourself to the members of you family who so desperately longed for a closer relationship with you, your Wellesley family, your Dad… What a sheer delight to talk with you on the phone every weekend!

It’s funny – I don’t think I ever saw a single paper you wrote in high school or college. I've seen plenty of papers your older brothers wrote, which they asked me to critique for them – and some they probably didn’t ask me to critique. Let me now give you, my dear son, my critique of your movie script.

Max, I am in awe of your script. I am in awe of you. I wouldn’t change a single word.