The Completion of a Life

Dr. Maurice R. Barusch, Uncle Maurie, completed his life Saturday evening at his home in Oakland. His sons, Larry and Ron, and wife Barbara were with him.

He and Aunt Phyllis were life-long fighters for equality and improvement of their community.  Uncle Maurie was a charter member of the Richmond (now West Contra Costa County) Unified School District.  He was president of the board as it tried to integrate the schools, and for a while he had to have a police escort to their public meetings.

Maurie was redozdachs‘s mother’s brother.  I like to think that my addition to the family helped bring the relatives closer:  I was the renegade Democrat on the Republican Kulik side and the Barusches were solidly liberal. Maurie and Phyllis were clear with their approval of my rational influence on his Neanderthal sister and her sons. After I appeared on the scene, brother and sister saw considerably more of each other than they had in decades.

Last July 22nd Maurie took his granddaughter Margaret, Barbara, Geoff, and me out to lunch at Sutro’s at the Cliff House. Sometime during the comfortable lunch with the captivating scenery Maurie quietly told Geoff about his diagnosis of terminal kidney cancer.  The picture of Maurie was taken during the lunch while I was still ignorant of that private conversation.

His Musings of An Old Man articulates his militantly moral atheism and outlines his professional, community, and family life.