Last night about 8, Bob received a call from Shelley, his brother’s wife, with the unexpected news his brother Paul had died around dinner time. He had been transferred from the hospital where he’d been for three weeks recovering from pneumonia to a memory care facility. He’d been there only a couple of days.
The thing about death is its finality and the silence that accompanies it. Memories float by like icebergs in a quiet sea bringing forth so many deep big emotions. Perhaps this unexpected death is a blessing given the diagnosis Paul had of Lewy Body Dementia. The future was not bright. He’s been spared a great deal of suffering for which I feel very grateful. We are very, very sad. We will not hear his deep resonant voice or laugh again or see his squinty-eyed big smile when he greets us. We treasure all our memories of him.
He was Bob’s only sibling. He and Bob shared the Pearl River upbringing and both looked back with great nostalgia to the good times they had there. They both are very smart and technical whizzes. Paul’s life work and love was PASCO, the company he founded from a high school science fair project. It started out in his parents’ garage out in Lafayette. His dad was the technical advisor and his mom, the secretary. But soon it outgrew that and moved to San Leandro and later up to Roseville. It grew into a multi-million dollar physics equipment company for universities and high schools. It’s an amazing story. It’s Paul’s story.
He loved PASCO. He could never let it go. Bob would always ask him on a phone call or a visit, “How’s PASCO doing?” and they’d chat about that first and foremost. First of all though, he loved his wife, Shelley, the family especially his nephews. He loved the Seventh Day Adventist Church he attended most all of his life and the church friends he’d made over the years. He loved sailing “Miss Piggy” or Pygmalion, his Westsail 32 foot sailboat he had for so many years. In the early years, he sailed to Hawaii on it with a couple of young guys from church. He loved history, especially the history of his family. He and Shelley loved to give great big parties. I remember Thanksgivings in Roseville where the whole house was filled with tables and people, perhaps 40 or more of their friends and family there. He loved their dogs- the first being Millie, named for the Millikan Oil Drop instrument, the science fair project that measured the charge on an electron.
Paul was a man full of love and always had a positive outlook on life. He loved life.
He was a good man, a good husband, brother and uncle. He was a good boss. He lived a good life. In the end, he developed a terrible disease, but he never complained or bemoaned his lot. He will be greatly missed and always remembered by many.
Death is said to be the final chapter, the end. None of us will know what happens when we die until we get there. Paul has gone first. It is a sad, sad day, his day of reckoning with power greater than all of us. I mostly feel gratitude for his life, for having him as my only brother-in-law all these many years.
