he was a wonderful teacher, training psychoanalyst, and mentor.  i think about him quite often and hear his words in my mind, even now, almost 35 years after i last spoke to him.

I miss you Gerry. I miss our twice yearly walks from you brown stone to the Chinese Restaurant a block away. I miss our talks, that were always not long enough no matter how long they were. I miss you my Teacher, My  Analyst, My Friend.

Dr. Lucas was my analyst for ten years and taught me so much about how to be a better therapist just by his example. He helped a lot of people. A hero and a genius. Thank you Dr. Lucas.

Odysseus heavy bodied in an armchair
A man barrel voice
Wind swept over the sparkling Aegean
Over me in resonance
A man barrel voice
Over and through me
And kind.

This man with thick hands
Could grasp a sword
And with meat jointed arms
Carve a path through Trojan Spears;
This mortal twice blessed
By a flashing eyed goddess
Beams at me
And lets his arms hang loose.

His cunning words
Playing over me gently,
And with sharing grin
His manly hearted laughter
Laughs over and through me
And breathes my flesh into blood
And laughs at my surprise.

Dr. Lucas was "in my family" for over three decades, as I had consulted with him in therapy from 1999 until his retirement, prior to which he had served as my mother's supervisor in her training as a psychotherapist since the 1980s.  So in a real sense, his passing was as if that of a close family member.  I have cherished and will miss my therapy sessions with him, his warmth and his humor.  R.I.P.

Dr. Lucas was my best friend's father. I was 12  (1975) when I started spending an inordinate amount of time in his big ramshackle castle-house, where there were no locked doors and the first floor was an abandoned nursery school (Lockhart Nursery School?).         You would announce your presence by screaming up the giant staircase, Tyler. 

If you were lucky Dr. Lucas would be home, invite you in for a drink, and sit you down for a series of funny stories and some dirty jokes. What I remember about him the most, is his sense of humor.  He liked to make us laugh.  He was very quiet, even shy, but around us kids he had an eager audience for his funny stories that left us in tears.  He also enjoyed being the butt of jokes, and often when we went places in public, he didn't mind if we poked fun at him for getting lost, running late or standing on the ticket holder's line without tickets. To us, he was a big, handsome, secure man who could take a joke.  He had fought the Nazis, he had been in the trenches at the battle of the bulge, and all this now was just the gravy.

Dr. Lucas was my former analyst and then friend. I will always remember Gerry and Mark's day when I would visit most every Friday. When Dr. Lucas he was able we went out for lunch, or stay home and talk. I will be eternally grateful for what he taught me about being human. I am soothed by the memory of holding him the day before he died.

OBITUARY

Gerald M. Lucas

April 9, 1925 – May 8, 2015

Walter B. Cooke Funeral Home

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