I had been at Michigan State University for several weeks when a friend and colleague recommended that I drop by to see David Bailey in Morrill Hall. Like many of those with a joint appointment, I had few expectations that I would be considered a full member of my minority department. David changed that in a single interaction. Having located his out-of-the-way room, more an intellectual’s den than conventional office, I delighted at the evidence of David’s learnedness: haphazard layers of manuscripts that largely concealed the rug and thousands of well-thumbed books packed tightly into wall-to-ceiling shelves or standing in precarious spirals on floor, desk and chairs. A quick scan of these shelves and piles – containing works on everything from anthropology and medieval history to Civil Rights and the philosophy of science – told me that I was not in the presence of a narrow specialist or an ideologue for modish theory. Sitting on a sagging armchair with his laptop balanced on his knees, David invited me with warm enthusiasm to sit on the one accessible chair. When I left work that evening I realized that the Department of History would become for me a congenial home.

Many more such visits followed. Each time I left with further suggestions of books to read, the pleasure of having enjoyed highly intelligent and amusing conversation, and a stronger connection with someone whom I respected and whose respect I in turn would cherish. As my own research strayed into areas novel for me, David would routinely take down from his shelves brilliant books of which I was unaware. And his help was invaluable. Invariably he would recall with startling rapidity what was at stake in different fields and he could be depended on to add his own subtle reflections born of lengthy contemplation and the widest of reading. Such was the quality of David’s intellectual companionship that he maintained decades-long relationships with former advisors from his Berkeley graduate school days, speaking with them weekly on the phone at times scheduled as strictly as any religious observance.

Within a year David’s friendship mattered as much to me as any I’ve ever enjoyed. During nine-years of tea breaks, long lunches at the Peanut Barrel or Snyder-Philips dining hall, and longer stints over beer on my deck, the Harrison Roadhouse or in English pubs over warm, malty beer and sausage rolls, David practiced the wise imperative of E M Forster’s Howard’s End: ‘Only connect’. The academic life can be dysfunctionally isolating, lonely furrows can be ploughed so deeply that we’re no longer able to see over the top. Not so for David. He read the work of his colleagues, was helpfully forthcoming with criticisms and, when deserved, fulsome with praise. For many of us he helped to humanise the academic existence, making the department into the learned community to which we’d always hoped to belong.

David’s kindness manifested in multiple ways. He loved our children in part because towards them he could more freely express the enormous tenderness of his character. He would put them at their ease, make them laugh, and bring them favourite treats, Advent calendars in December, and wonderfully elaborate birthday cakes commissioned from Bake-n-Cakes. This sort of generosity extended to adults, too; those in distress would open their doors to find expensive cakes or entire cured hams on their front steps – as well as David’s Subaru receding into the distance. When we were in extremis David did not always know what to say: he was too honest to offer banal consolation and, I think, carried so much pain himself from the loss of his wife Mary that in emotionally acute situations he often seemed to prefer doing over talking. But he found ways of showing his support, love and understanding that we will always treasure.

When my son was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer, at aged 3, David spent long hours with us at the hospital, smuggling in the bottles of brandy that helped make those terrifyingly dark days survivable. In the weeks that followed, when Charlie was receiving radiation and the steroids that made him ravenously hungry, David would always strive to lift Charlie’s mood and maintain his parents’ morale. For two weeks this entailed driving over an hour each way to an Ikea store every other day to buy another tray of the cinnamon rolls that Charlie loved. And, for Abby and I, there were regular deliveries of sanity-preserving cases of wine. Over the years that followed Charlie and David developed a deep bond, both valuing one another’s desire to connect and sensing one another’s humanity. Charlie wept hot, heavy tears one afternoon when we were driving David back from Chicago upon being told that his friend would not be moving into our basement! David was there just a few hours before Charlie passed away. He mostly sat in silence. He had been himself in a similar place and knew that words had no power.

One of my greatest regrets is that I distanced myself from friendships, including to some extent that with David, in the months that followed, unable to find ways of being authentic without feeling or causing discomfort and embarrassment. But David understood. He knew the pain of loving and losing. On the day of his death, David beckoned my wife and I close to him so we could hear him speak despite his rapidly weakening voice. It was an opportunity for all of us to express the affection that diffidence had silenced. ‘I’m going to see Mary and Charlie later today’, he said. It was an intensely moving moment for which we are profoundly grateful. Just as importantly, David had already provided a model for how one can at least half-heal from tragedy: by living a more selfless life. After Mary’s death, five years before I first met him, David threw himself into nurturing wonderful students at the Honors College. All the time that I knew him he invested gladly and fully in junior faculty. And he was also devoted to the History Department. In support of his intellectual home, David could be the ablest political operator; he would often talk of ‘planting seeds’, making apparently casual statements about what might be done which would germinate months later with astonishing frequency. We relied on David’s political savvy and personal advice because he was both wise and unselfish.

In life and perhaps more so in his passing, David caused many of us to re-examine our priorities. There is much to be emulated in the proud joy with which David talked about his daughters and their accomplishments; in his devotion to Doris, his mother; in the passion that he brought to teaching and mentoring students; in the readiness with which he would drop whatever he was doing to speak with a colleague; and in his willingness to stand his ground in order to do what was right for the department. David Bailey is irreplaceable. I will miss him terribly.