Memorial Service Speech — Lanny Passaro (Doug’s Father) — April 22, 2005

First, thank you all for coming here today to help us celebrate Doug’s short but remarkably full life. You have come from the East Coast and West Coast and many places in between. Many of you have spent a lot of time during this week helping Sherry and my families cope with this tragedy. On behalf of both our families, we thank you for your support and help. We will always remember your generosity.

If Doug were here, he would tell me to get on with it—so that we can get to the party after the service. You can already tell that he knew how to set priorities.

Since he was such a fun-loving and musical guy, I thought that I would just hit of few of the many notes that he played—to try to give you a flavor of what those who were close to him experienced every day.

Doug was born a couple of months prematurely—about 15 minutes after I screeched the old VW into the Navy hospital parking lot in the middle of the night after a 20 mile drive, That pretty well set the stage for his life. Lots of excitement and spontaneity—and a few close calls.

He had eye trouble as a small child and it followed him into his school years. Since he was small in stature and wore thick glasses and had poor hand-eye coordination, he was often teased by his classmates—despite his intellectual prowess. He chose to meet that problem head on— by becoming a successful high school wrestler. That sport needed neither large size nor good eyesight but needed dedication and discipline. Now wrestlers at Highland Park High School were generally some of the toughest kids in school and might be called “intellectual underachievers”. They were not kids who normally went on to elite universities. Yet, in his senior year, his fellow wrestlers voted him the “Most Dedicated Wrestler” on his team. The members of that team were exceptionally smart guys.

The next note I want to hit was about one of our discussions about his service in the Peace Corps in Swaziland before he went to Northwestern medical school. I know that some of those he served with are here today. He taught science in a remote part of the country, living in a tin roofed hut without electricity or running water for a couple of years. He told me of some encounters with poisonous insects and other fauna that curled my hair. When he returned, I was consoling him about the difficult living conditions in Africa, he turned to me and said—“Dad—those were the best years of my life.” I will never forget those words. That may have been the moment that I realized fully Doug’s character and motivation.

As a father, one of the rewards you get is to “puff up” when your children win awards or other recognition. While I often “puffed”, Doug never cared much about that. One award was very special. He was very proud of being selected, by his peers at Northwestern Medical School, for the “humanism in medicine” award. I think his popularity with patients was based upon his ability to empathize with the human condition. He continued to volunteer as an Infectious disease attending Physician until this week just because he loved clinical work and helping both patients and younger doctors.

And I know he was a damn good doctor. His preceptor at Northwestern Medical School told me recently, “Doug was the gold standard for a 4^th year medical student. I continue to measure others against him. None have yet reached his level.”

To be fair, I must note one of his defects. In the article in yesterday’s Tribune, it talked about his choice between being a heart surgeon and a public health or infectious diseases specialist where he felt that he could get a lot more mileage out of each Dollar committed. The article also quoted Sherry as saying that he was the smartest scientist she had ever met. They edited out the rest of her statement which added, “and the most uncoordinated man she had ever met.” I doubt there would have been any patient survivors if he had chosen that surgical option!

There is a lot more I could talk about. He loved music in every form, listening, performing, and collecting. He did a “road trip” last year down the California coast with friends to try to find old 33rpm rock records. As a sax player, he made up for some lack of technical skill with great enthusiasm. As a mandolin player, he always made me think of my father, who was the last man I knew who played that instrument.

But the final and highest note I want to hit is about his love of family. It is the most important note of all. He was a dedicated and loving husband to Sherry and father to Natalie and Gina. He loved them all above everything else and really dedicated his life to the three of them.

His sisters Michele and Leslie always regale me with stories about Uncle Dougie. The three siblings have always remained very close to each other. I know that is true since my youngest, Leslie clearly had a strong relationship with him very early. The first words she ever spoke were not Mama or Dada but “Dondodatdougie” Most recently, he was with his other sister Michele in Baltimore at Easter time. She recalls Doug hiding about 100 Easter eggs in her yard and then enthusiastically leading Natalie and Gina and Michele’s two, Matthew and Lauren into the yard as if he were the Pied Piper. When he was with kids, he was just one of them—no matter what age they were—he morphed into that age. In my condo building, there are restrictions on pool use by children. When he was in the pool with Natalie and Gina, I was never worried about them but I often feared that his effervescence would scare or at least disturb other residents. Fortunately, Sherry always saved the day. Sherry and Doug were the perfect pair. I remember hearing about their deciding during the filling of Christmas stockings that two tiny guitars should also be used by them to create a duet which they performed on the spot. Doug and Sherry complemented each other as perfectly as I have ever seen and have always played a duet.

My conclusion is that I am a very lucky man to have been Doug’s father.

That he and his sisters turned out to be such wonderful people is largely due to their good fortune in having a loving and totally dedicated mother who taught them good values and molded their characters,

Doug’s life was very short but very full. He wasted none of the time he had with us. He will be missed for many reasons but the tragedy here is that many thousands and possibly millions of people will miss the benefits of the work he was doing to make the world a better and more healthful place for all of us and our descendants.

I think that he would have certainly agreed with me that for a family to face what happened this week the proper words are—“This really sucks!

Thanks again for coming to help us celebrate Doug’s life.