Waleed J. Iskandar
(By David Stievater)
~ He touched the lives of so many ~
I lived with Waleed in his apartment on Beacon Street in Back Bay from 1991-1993. Before that, we had gotten to know each other at Monitor, where I had started working the year before. I have many memories of times with Waleed, including mountain biking with him in Utah and Colorado in the Summer of 1991, skiing in Utah (my first time skiing) in the Winter of 1991-92, and especially from sharing the apartment with him. Waleed was very generous. He rented a room in the Beacon street apartment to me for $400 a month - of course this was before I knew that I would live among plaster dust and constant renovation for the next 2 years! My timing was perfect - as soon as I left in the Summer of 1993 for business school at Michigan, Waleed finished the renovations. What a beautiful space it was, lurking underneath all the painters cloths and hanging plastic dividers! I finally saw the finished apartment during the Summer of 1994 when we watched the Boston fireworks over the Charles River from his roof deck. . . He also didn't have any problem volunteering his family's resources for my benefit! As Sany may remember, Waleed volunteered his basement to store my jeep hardtop in during the summer! Later, when my wife Kathy and I were visiting the West Coast, we picked Waleed up and went up the coast to a house that Mr. Iskandar was building on the beach, I think near Oxnard. After this, Waleed headed off to a safari trip to Africa, and I was heading off to business school. Waleed felt badly about missing my wedding in August that summer (1993), due to his travels, since he brought me back a sculpture from Africa that must have weighed five pounds! He did his penance ;-) There were always people from business school over at our apartment. We had poker nights, watched video disks (!) on his surround sound system (he was way ahead of his time), and had barbeques on the roof. We used to go over to the bar Crossroads which was across Mass Ave., on Beacon Street, to eat wings and hang out. We played a lot of darts over there, up on the second floor. I remember buying many pitchers of Bass Ale during darts nights. 486 Beacon was the scene of many parties. Our circles of friends mingled well. One year, we started our annual Halloween party tradition (I think it actually lasted two years!). Our invitation somehow circulated way beyond our initial guest list, because we had both floors packed with people in costumes. And there was Waleed in the middle of it, without trying ensuring everyone was having a good time. Waleed loved to have a good time. One of the birthday gifts I gave Waleed was a set of clay poker chips, because he was enjoying playing cards so much! Waleed was the kind of person who naturally attracted people to his world. He was charismatic, always helpful, with words of encouragement. I can hardly recall a time when he swore or got angry. He had a very even temperament, and combined with his raw intelligence and gift for making people feel good, this made him a very pleasing person to be around. When I was learning to ski, back in 1991-92, I suggested a ski trip out West during Monitor's traditional time off between Christmas and New Years. Waleed of course was a very good skier, but didn't have any problem deciding to go on this trip with me, a total beginner. It wasn't important to him that I didn't yet ski - it was more a matter of the destination and knowing that he'd figure out how to have fun (we had a wonderful, wonderful time - we had perfect snow, and I fell in love with Alta). We went with our good friend from Monitor, Jill Neptune (now Jill Bicks) and another friend of mine. I only made it out a couple of times to Worcester, but one of the things I remember most about Waleed was his ski boat. He really loved water skiing. I remember how he fit the boom onto his boat to try barefoot skiing. The first time I saw it I couldn't believe he was going to do it, but do it he did, and before long there were people skiing with him on the boat who I never met. He just attracted people based on his love for whatever it was he was doing. When I wanted to take some time off from Monitor and go west to do some mountain biking in the Summer of 1991, Waleed figured out how to rearrange his itinerary from a previous trip to meet me in Salt Lake City for a week of touring Moab, the national parks in Utah and various Colorado mountains. I will never forget the tremendous hailstorm that hit us in Purgatory, in Colorado. I had to hide under the hatch of the Ford Explorer we rented to avoid the 1/2" hailstones! This trip was unforgettable - we biked through some of the most scenic land in all of America, and camped under the red rock walls of the Colorado River and its tributaries. I have a photo album of the pictures on a shelf in my living room at home. I have one picture that I enlarged, of a moon rising over the rock cliff of the mesas in Utah. Waleed was a great companion, on this trip, and in all the other adventures we had together. Waleed and I also used to go cycling when we were in Boston. We would go out for long rides, in the "leafy" western suburbs of Boston. It's really beautiful out there - in Concord, Sudbury, Weston and so on. He introduced me to some of the longer rides that I still do today. He used to tell me he went riding with the Harvard University cycling team. Somehow just attached himself to it. This is the kind of person he was - he decided he wanted to do something, and just went off and did it. I will miss Waleed dearly. Even though we didn't see each other as much over the last 5-6 years, he was always ready with a warm, embracing smile when we did meet. I am saddened to think that no one else will be able to be touched by Waleed's open, generous spirit again. I will treasure these memories always, and Waleed, wherever you are, know that you have forever touched and changed the lives of so many. I take comfort knowing that Waleed is now with the angels in heaven. (David Stievater) |
