Dear Jack:
It has been a week or so that I learned of your health ordeals and have accumulated enough courage to write now. I am terribly saddened by the situation and really do not know what to say, except to remind myself how lucky I have been to have a friend like you. I still remember the times when you were there for me at MIT when I started my career in combustion, then helping me at various stages in my academic career with your supportive letters and words. I also vividly remember the colloquia we had on your retirement, when I still felt like a graduate student. Your youthful appearance, which hardly changed over the years, made many of the colloquia attendees jealous. The current situation reminds me again how lucky we all are to have lived meaningful and productive lives with our friends and loving families. Nevertheless, time is unstoppable. I started looking at the mirror and ask: Who is this old man? What happened to the young Selim I used to know? There is an old saying in Turkish "Getting old is the price we pay for living". To this I add a corollary "Our lives are made by the choices and friends we make during this journey". In my case, I had the fortune to have your friendship. I am not sure when we will meet again, but my thoughts are with you and with your family. My best wishes and warmest regards.
Your friend Selim Senkan
PS: Happy 70th birthday soon.
Friday, October 5, 2007
Letter from Howard Palmer
Dear Jack,
I heard from Yaw Yeboah about your brain tumor and then shortly after that I received a copy of Phil Westmoreland’s helpful email, after which I accessed your blog, with all its information and wonderful messages from your students and colleagues, including a number of prayers and many words of encouragement for you and Carolyn and your children. I am enormously impressed and moved by what I have been reading, and I just want to add my bit.
The main thing I want to say is that one of the prouder and happier moments in my professional life was when I learned from Hoyt Hottel that you were getting tenure at MIT and that my input had quite a bit to do with it. Probably not nearly as much as Hoyt’s, but still…..I’m proud of that. And of course enormously proud of your career as a Penn State Fuel Science PhD (even though I wasn’t your advisor).
You are a gifted teacher, mentor, researcher, writer, and I am sure that you are one of the most admired and affectionately regarded members of the MIT faculty. I think that also applies to the fuels/energy/combustion/materials community at large. I don’t know much about your entrepeneurship, but I have no doubt that it also is outstanding. And I happen to know that personally you are one of the finest people around. And, I judge, one of the most courageous.
God bless you, Carolyn, and your family. I have you in my own prayers.
Howard Palmer
I heard from Yaw Yeboah about your brain tumor and then shortly after that I received a copy of Phil Westmoreland’s helpful email, after which I accessed your blog, with all its information and wonderful messages from your students and colleagues, including a number of prayers and many words of encouragement for you and Carolyn and your children. I am enormously impressed and moved by what I have been reading, and I just want to add my bit.
The main thing I want to say is that one of the prouder and happier moments in my professional life was when I learned from Hoyt Hottel that you were getting tenure at MIT and that my input had quite a bit to do with it. Probably not nearly as much as Hoyt’s, but still…..I’m proud of that. And of course enormously proud of your career as a Penn State Fuel Science PhD (even though I wasn’t your advisor).
You are a gifted teacher, mentor, researcher, writer, and I am sure that you are one of the most admired and affectionately regarded members of the MIT faculty. I think that also applies to the fuels/energy/combustion/materials community at large. I don’t know much about your entrepeneurship, but I have no doubt that it also is outstanding. And I happen to know that personally you are one of the finest people around. And, I judge, one of the most courageous.
God bless you, Carolyn, and your family. I have you in my own prayers.
Howard Palmer
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