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Paul Dew Ward ’02

October 4, 2011, in Santa Fe, New Mexico, after a 12-year struggle with bipolar illness.

Paul was a writer and philosopher who strove to understand life in all its complexities. At its heart, he found life beautiful and worthwhile, but deep personal pain brought him neither rest nor peace. Paul lost many friends along the way, young men condemned for being gay, or cast aside for their addiction to drugs. He honored their memory and grieved for them always. Brilliant, quirky, and loving, he was also bossy, argumentative, stubborn, generous and kind. His greatest joys were his family, poetry, the trails of Rancho Viejo, long walks with his best friend and spiritual brother, Greg Relkin, and his dog, Pi.

“Never before or since have I encountered a soul with so much compassion and understanding,” said Michael Golan ’03. “Paul was the greatest of teachers, educating me through conversation and by example on how to be a scholar, a friend, a man, a human being. I think back to Paul instructing me on Aristotle’s notion of friendship as a soul inhabiting two bodies, knowing that with Paul’s passing, a bright light within my own soul has been extinguished, never to be rekindled. Goodbye my brother philosopher, my teacher, my friend.”

Paul is survived by his brothers, Robert and Patrick Ward, and his mother, Sylvie Ward

Appeared in Reed magazine: September 2018

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