By Herbert Hadad

Two old and noble men my wife and I knew—one obscure, one world-famous—died within a short time of each other last year. One was named Neal Wyer. The other, Laurance Spelman Rockefeller. Though I could never hope to announce any insight into the secrets of life, death, and the beyond, when I examined the lives of these men as they intersected with ours, I noticed some clues to the nature of wisdom, the formula for longevity, and the key to a successful life.

Fifty years ago, a tall, strong engineer named Neal Wyer built a sturdy house in the woods for his wife and four children. Twenty-seven years later, I moved into that house with my wife and three children.

We were very fond of the original owner. Early on, Neal took us to Sunday brunch with our immediate neighbors, the Chins, with whom we became close friends. He came for dinner with his girlfriends (his wife, Rose, had died before we met). He was not a particularly humorous man, but he seemed to enjoy feeling indignant, which he himself could laugh about.

He had worked in the oil industry in the Middle East. Well past ordinary retirement age, he landed a job as a physical-plant engineer at a local college. "I didn't think they'd hire you, Neal, in this era of age discrimination," I said.

"I just shaved the last page off my resumé," he said, "and became ten years younger."

Somehow, it was a shock last winter when we got the e-mail from Neal's daughter Kathleen. "Dad died. He was ninety-one. He always wished to have his ashes placed under the dogwood tree in front of the house, next to our mother's. Is it possible?"

Kathy wanted to gather her siblings, nieces, nephews, and in-laws from around the country for a service at the tree in early summer. We immediately agreed and told her we'd host a post-service reception at the house.

In the spring, however, a terrible thing happened. We watched in vain for the dogwood's deep-pink blossoms; the tree remained perfectly still. "Take a cutting from a branch to be sure," the horticulturalist I consulted said. "But I'm afraid your dogwood is dead." A short time later, a landscape company came, and in ten minutes the tree that had graced our front lawn for decades was gone.

"Dear Kathy," I wrote. "It pains me to report the beloved dogwood is dead. We hope you'll come ahead anyway."

On a drizzly Sunday afternoon, Neal's survivors, joined by our neighbors, gathered at the circle of stones where the tree had flourished. My wife, Evelyn, and I had planted a variety of flowers to make the circle less forlorn.

Neal's son, Kevin, read Buddhist prayers. Candles and incense were lit. Some people kneeled in the Buddhist manner while others stood. Some held each other. A hole was dug, and each member of the family scattered a portion of Neal's ashes into the earth. The dirt was replaced, and the mound was covered with petals.

Then the family filed inside our house. For the Wyer children, it was a tense and exciting moment, because they had grown up there and were eager to see what changes had been made. They asked permission to examine the rooms and scattered like kids cut loose in an amusement park.

Evelyn and I and our daughter, Sara Jameel, had prepared a dining table laden with food. For dessert, we had baklava, the Middle Eastern pastry made of layers of phyllo dough and honey, often with crushed walnut or pistachio meats folded in, sometimes sprinkled with rose water.

When she saw the food, Kathy almost shrieked. "How could you know? Did Dad tell you? Baklava was his favorite food in the whole world!" Neal had never mentioned it. I'd bought the baklava as an afterthought. We took its presence on the table as a sign of harmony among us all, including Neal.

"Neal was a tough, no-nonsense man," I told the gathering. "And decent in every sense of the word." I recounted the story of the couple who rang his doorbell hours after we had committed to buy his house. "Forget the Hadad offer," they said to him. "We'll give you $3,000 more." Neal answered by closing the door.

Kathleen described Neal's last days. Hospitalized, he decided his life was quickly coming to a close. "He ordered that he be given no more medicines or food," she said. "He was content. Within a day, he was gone, as he wished."

Inevitably, after a funeral, one thinks of one's own mortality. My mind flashed to an essay by one of my writing students, about a call she'd made on an old White Plains, New York, cemetery—one said to have been visited by George Washington.

She was considering buying plots for members of her family, including her brother-in-law, a Sufi Muslim from Syria. This last detail seemed to make the cemetery manager uncomfortable. "Are they going to chant and dance around the grave and those sorts of things?" he asked snidely. As a Jew of Middle East heritage, I bristled when that line was read aloud in class.

Fortunately, my student found the employees at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, about two miles from my house, much more congenial. Her brother-in-law and his family would be welcome, they said, and the cemetery was familiar with the rites. She purchased plots there.

Neal's service and my student's story tapped something very deep in me. I made a declaration to Evelyn. "I've done a lot of thinking about this, darling. I want all usable body parts donated, and I want to be buried with the Muslims."

She dignified the subject with this reply: "You're not going anywhere, buster. If anything, I'm going first."

A few weeks before Neal's service, we heard that Laurance Rockefeller, whose house was down the road from ours, had died at ninety-four. A conservationist, venture capitalist, and philanthropist, he had donated hundreds of thousands of acres of land for preservation and had been honored by governors and presidents. A brilliant man, he was also a shy one. He gently argued his way out of almost every public appearance.

Evelyn and Laurance attended the same church, and struck up a fond association. He invited us to Sunday dinner at his home, where he held forth wryly on matters ranging from Henry Kissinger's political dexterity to the fiscal maneuvering behind a Mike Tyson fight.

He candidly gave us his view of religion: "I think of us as all being on an open sea. Who am I to judge which lifeboat you get into to be saved?" And, despite his fame and accomplishments, he revealed a question that would dog him till the end. "Is humility," he wondered, "merely low self-esteem in disguise?"

At Riverside Church, a massive cathedral in upper Manhattan built by an earlier generation of Laurance's family, eight hundred of us gathered for his memorial service. We watched the famous and the powerful take their places near the front.

Laughter rolled through the church as family members got up to offer their recollections. "Dad said there was a decided advantage to being dead," one of Laurance's children remembered. "You save a lot of money."

We sat through solemn hymns and rituals and a long sermon, but I thought Laurance's true nature was most reflected in the music we heard as the service concluded. Barbra Streisand belted out "People" from a CD player, then, assembled in the sanctuary, the society orchestra led by Lester Lanin (who died several months later at age ninety-seven) played "When You're Smiling."

At the reception, everyone asked one another how they knew the great man. A compact, lovely woman with a New England accent said, "Oh, I gave him his first massage." Another striking woman explained proudly, "I was his yoga teacher." Obviously, Laurance appreciated all kinds of beauty, from seascapes to women.

For me, the most meaningful and profound revelation was a story someone told about Laurance's last days. A close friend asked him if he was prepared to die. "Yes," Laurance said. "But before I do, let's eat a piece of chocolate."

Hearing this, I felt a joyful sense of discovery, of epiphany. Neal Wyer and Laurance Spelman Rockefeller, having made their peace with the world, left behind the same message. Life is sweet. Live it so. Have a piece of baklava. Eat some chocolate. But when life is over, let it go.

Herbert Hadad is a Northeastern graduate and an award-winning writer.