One of my earliest memories of my grandpa is from when I was about 6 or 7. I was visiting him at his old apartment across from Washington Square Park. He used to take me to the park, and being a kid, not from New York, I was always very dazzled by the number of pigeons. One day he asked me if I would like to feed the pigeons and I thought that sounded great. He told me very matter-of-factly that pigeons' favorite thing to eat is a blueberry muffin. I remember thinking that that seemed crazy; there was no way that a pigeon could have preference of one type of muffin over another. I figured bread, muffin, what's the difference? I wanted to go straight to the park, but instead I went with my grandpa to go purchase a very large blueberry muffin. When we got to the park, I started tossing bits of the muffin out, and within a few minutes, I had hundreds of pigeons surrounding me. Before I knew it, one pigeon came in for the attack; flapping its wings in my face, it took the remainder of the muffin, with its claws, straight out of my hands. I remember, that after that, I decided that no matter what sort of weird claims my grandpa made in the future, I would not doubt him again. Because blueberry muffins really are pigeons' favorite.

Last summer I came to New York to study math with my grandpa. We were studying methods of proof. I was really excited and I feel so lucky to have had someone in my family who would do math with me. Maybe it was the fact that he was teaching me one-on-one, or maybe it's that we have genes in common, but the way he explained the methods and theorems seemed so clear and intuitive. It felt really great to be taught by him. I especially liked when he'd get to the proofs that he held in high esteem. He would pause and say in this funny way, "Now this, is a beautiful proof" lingering on the vowels in beautiful. I once asked him what drove a mathematician and he said that whenever a mathematician has to choose which direction to take, the only thing that leads him is whatever he finds aesthetically beautiful, that's all.

At one point during my stay last summer, he noticed me hesitate at a problem and he told me a story about how when he used to teach, he found that sometimes when he'd give his class a problem and ask them to guess at the solution, some students wouldn't even attempt it if they didn't know the answer right away. He said that in order to be successful in math or science, you can't let fear of confusion hinder you. He said so many people will stop when they get confused, but you need to realize that when you get confused, that's a sign that you're going to learn something.

So, he said next time you get confused, you should really be excited because you know you're going to learn. I found that very inspirational, especially since I get confused all the time when I'm doing math and it's nice to remind myself to be excited. But what I also realize is that clearly confusion doesn't only apply to math and science. When I was thinking of how to tell that story today, and thinking about how I've never had anyone close to me die before, I realized that I find my grandpa being gone confusing. But as I learned with the blueberry muffin, I'm not going to doubt my grandpa, and even though it's hard, and I miss him a lot, maybe here too, there is something to learn.

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