Last Years
Ilya showed great strength in battling Parkinson's disease for the last 30 years of his life. His condition worsened in the last 10 years to the point where he was barely able to move and speak, but thanks to extraordinary love and care of his wife Edith, Ilya was still able to travel to many mathematical conferences and keep mathematical contacts. With the help of James Cogdell he was able to continue at the highest level of research until almost his last days.
Ilya was an amateur chess player and loved playing chess with his children. In the last 10 years, when it became difficult for him to move and even speak, he still played chess and checkers as a way of communicating with them, and sometimes was even winning.
Read more about this topic: Ilya Piatetski-Shapiro
Famous quotes containing the word years:
“What will our children remember of us, ten, fifteen years from now? The mobile we bought or didn’t buy? Or the tone in our voices, the look in our eyes, the enthusiasm for life—and for them—that we felt? They, and we, will remember the spirit of things, not the letter. Those memories will go so deep that no one could measure it, capture it, bronze it, or put it in a scrapbook.”
—Sonia Taitz (20th century)
“The child-rearing years are relatively short in our increased life span. It is hard for young women caught between diapers and formulas to believe, but there are years and years of freedom ahead. I regret my impatience to get on with my career. I wish I’d relaxed, allowed myself the luxury of watching the world through my little girl’s eyes.”
—Eda Le Shan (20th century)