It started with a Facebook ad in late April.
Eighty-five-year-old Larry Aaronson responded on the first day. When I called, he said immediately that he was in the hospital, that he had “about a year to live”, and that he wanted me to produce a video for his memorial service.
My business, Heritage Stories, helps older people capture their legacies. I hadn’t exactly planned on producing end-of-life videos. I also wasn’t intimidated by the gravity of the ask.
He was a high school teacher
In our initial conversation, Larry described what he called “a life of serendipity”, sharing a stream of fantastical stories. The one he would tell repeatedly was about being a progressive high school teacher in Cambridge, MA, who taught many prominent figures: local politicians, celebrities including Matt Damon and Casey Affleck, and New York Knicks legend, Patrick Ewing.
I left the call with the sense I was part of some elaborate Facebook scam. A Google search proved everything was true.
The first time I went to see Larry, he was in a rehab facility. A couple arrived during my visit. I asked how they knew him. The man told me Larry was his high school history teacher.
“You keep in touch with your high school history teacher?” I asked. He replied, “You don’t not keep in touch with Larry. He’s like family.” That’s when I knew I had met someone special.
I interviewed him while in hospice
Larry’s life of serendipity is actually what led him to teaching. After receiving two master’s degrees, he sought a final deferment from the Vietnam draft.
His mother told him her coworker’s husband had opened a school for dropouts. He got the job and the deferment that came with it. He went on to have a career at the cutting edge of education, shaping the field with an influence that far exceeded the walls of the alternative high schools in which he taught.
In July 2026, I arrived at Larry’s assisted living facility to interview him, but he wasn’t there. In his apartment, I met another former student who was also one of his healthcare proxies, an indication of the depth of relationships Larry cultivated. She told me Larry was in the hospital and only had a couple of weeks left.
Suddenly, what was meant to be a one- or two-session interview morphed into me being in hospice with Larry almost every day for three weeks, documenting what would be his final days. Each day, I interviewed him and the steady stream of visitors who came to catch up, scratch his back, feed him, and ultimately say goodbye.
Larry and I got to know each other intimately and learned we had a lot in common. We both attended Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism. I had also been a teacher in an earlier career.
The experience changed me
I learned so much about life from Larry. Despite knowing he was close to death, Larry was content. He had the air of peace someone has when they realize the impact their life had. The energy in the room was joyous, not sad. He had all the things you wish for someone’s final days: community, love, and validation that your life mattered. Dozens of people from various chapters of his life came to shower him with love and tell him what he meant to them. When he could no longer participate, Larry smiled at the lively conversation happening around him. Even in his death, he was creating connections.
The experience will remain a touchstone for me, a barometer for how well I’m living my life. I learned that how you make people feel resonates for a lifetime. I learned that serendipity itself isn’t enough; it’s what you do with it, and Larry always used serendipity to lift others up.
He told me the most important thing in life was to lead with love. I will now ask myself regularly if I’m doing that.
In a life full of serendipity, I can’t help but feel like Larry answering my first-ever Facebook ad on the first day was yet another serendipitous event in his magical life. Larry passed peacefully on August 1. He liked to say he wanted to be at his own memorial. There was an impromptu party the next day, and he would have had a blast.
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