Jerry

I first met Jerry Goldsmith soon after joining The Health Industry Manufacturers Association, in 1985, as Vice President of Science & Technology. He had a serious look about him and we had many conversations about the crises, politics, and directions at our workplace work place.

Five years later, our new President resigned, and was replaced with a new one. He tried to impress the Board that he knew what he was doing, by firing all but one of the vice-presidents. I was among them. I saw Jerry, after I had packed up my stuff, and was about to be pushed out the door. To my surprise and his, I became emotional and told him that he was the only one I would really miss at his job and I was upset to lose him as a friend. He reassured me that we would see each other again. I was surprised when he got fired and we even tried, unsuccessfully, to establish a consulting company. Mitzi and I remained best friends with Jerry and Sharon ever since.

Jerry was a Gourmet cook. Dinner at home with them was an amazing show of expertise in making beautiful looking and tasting delicacies. Jerry and Sharon’s taste for excellent wines and their company made it a perfect night.

We all used to go to movies together. Once, soon after, Sharon’s surgery, I offered to pick the movie we would see. Jerry warned me to pick a good light movie. I found a Four-Star movie that looked great and bought the tickets. The movie started with an introduction about the trials and tribulations of surviving breast cancer. I turned to them, completely embarrassed by my stupidity, and begged for forgiveness. That, just made them laugh louder and louder at me. Jerry punctuated the incident by saying to me with his mock-angry sneer: “Next time I’ll pick the movie!” Jerry always delivered his witty remarks that way.

When Jerry and Sharron, moved from Washington DC to Delaware and winters in Florida, We visited them in Delaware and rented in Florida near Marco Island. We watched and helped the Horseshoe crabs mate at is beach in Delaware and even went bird watching in Florida with him. Jerry and Sharon had become avid bird watchers and environmentalists and supported organizations with similar interests.
They had a wonderful marriage and fun for Mitzi and me to be with.

Recently, Jerry emailed me and said he was coming for a routine blood test in DC and suggested we all get together for dinner. I agreed and waiting for his call later with the details. When he called back, he said that the test results were not good and he may have leukemia. He asked that we postpone the dinner. He called back later to tell me, matter-of-factly, that the results were much worse than expected and he was diagnosed with advanced pancreatic cancer and we would have to postpone our dinner. All the air seemed to leave my room.

He was given chemotherapy that seemed to stop the disease cold. He felt great and made an ambitious program of traveling to Florida, bird watching in the Everglades, and seeing their friends in California. We met in Florida several times during his illness. We went out together with our wives, celebrated Hanukah in their home and enjoyed each other at dinners, movies, etc. We were thrilled with his many months of enjoying life at its best.

As Jerry did during our friendship, in teaching me how to live, he also taught me how to die He treated the bad news as if it were a scientific problem. He was realistic, quietly courageous, and stoic, as he and Sharon studied his options.
When his numbers started to rise, we all knew that I was unlikely new round of chemo would change the outcome. We were with Jerry and Sharon as he began his decline and kept in touch, when we left Florida. Jerry asked to be transferred to a Hospice. He sent me a picture, when he was bed-ridden. He looked very ill. It had the caption: “Hi there. A week in here and no end in sight.” It was a little more dark humor, since he knew the time left was short.

His passing ended a thirty plus year friendship with Jerry, but not our memory of how he enhanced our lives with his friendship. Jerry was a really smart guy and knew his biochemistry so much better than I did, despite my Ph.D., in that subject. He and Sharon loved to go birding and Mitzi and I got a kick out of his explanations of his equipment and seeing different species with him and Sharon. Both he and Sharon were avid environmentalists, trying to save our planet and all living things.

With Jerry, you got what you saw. He was a serious person, an honest guy, who worked hard. He walked the floors of the exhibit area, seeming to know all the attendees and getting into deep discussions of technologies being shown there. Jerry finally was recognized, at his retirement, at the annual American Association for Clinical Chemistry (AACC) meeting. You could see full walls emblazoned with pictures of Jerry’s face, in the main hall and meeting rooms, telling, even the most famous speakers, how important he was to AACC’s success of its meetings. I was proud of him for reaching such high recognition that let him retire with the knowledge of what he accomplished.

He found joy in talking politics, seeing good movies, when we could find them, and enjoying a fine wine with a dinner at a good restaurant, or, alternatively, a spectacular dish made by him in his kitchen. He just loved to make beautiful dishes that we all could enjoy together.

Jerry Goldsmith was my friend to the end!
I still cannot bring myself to erase his emails.
I miss him and loved him as my best friend.

©Norman F. Estrin, Ph.D. Jerry Goldsmith Memorial, 2017