FREDRIC NEAL GABLER: A Yearning for
Community
Fredric
Neal Gabler's idea of heaven was to live surrounded by
his friends, on the same block or perhaps in some
suburban compound. Friends sometimes thought he was
joking when he talked about this dream of "communal
living," but he meant every word, his family says.
It would have had to be a sizable place. More than
1,500 people, including his sister Jolie and his parents,
Howard and Leslie Gabler, attended his memorial service
on Sept. 23 at Temple Beth Torah in Upper Nyack, N.Y. "He
was happiest when he was surrounded by the ones he
loved," his wife, Mindy, told the crowd.
This dream compound would also have been neat and
comfortable. (Mr. Gabler and a college roommate once
traded blows over the roommate's refusal to meet his
housekeeping standards.) And it would have been filled
with the sounds of sports -- part of the glue that held
his friendships together.
Fred Gabler, 30, an equity trader at Cantor
Fitzgerald, met Mindy when they were both 16. His
sports-hardened good looks and his father's Camaro were
the first attractions, she told his friends, but his
loving nature, honesty and sense of humor kept her at his
side. They lived in Manhattan and were expecting their
first child, a daughter, this month.
At his memorial service, his father -- who escaped on
Sept. 11 from his own offices in the World Trade Center
-- told mourners that the only thing missing from his
son's life "was length." Taking in the overflow crowd, he
said, "You are his eulogy."
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