Lessons Learned from Living a Purposeful Life

Hi All,

This is my first LinkedIn article, a slightly updated version of my first official FB post (yes I know it's 2021) from this Monday. Well at least I saved it for an important one- a tribute to my father-in-law George Katzoff, who passed away Monday morning in his sleep due to complications from COVID-19 at the age of 92; today was his funeral and we celebrate his memory.

A little about George's story- he was born in Boston in January 1929 (ironically the same year as my father) and spent his professional career as a pharmacist, including the last 25 years working for a government run mental health center for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Along the way he met and married his wife Flora and pretty quickly started a family with boy Mark and two years later girl Amy. One tragedy along the way was the sudden, unexpected passing of Flora, leaving George with the challenge of raising two teenagers as a widower. He succeeded of course- putting both kids through Ivy League schools (Columbia and Brown, respectively).

By the time I met George in 1994, he was retired and happily married to his second wife Adele, a widow herself with a large family- mother (who lived to 99 3/4!), four siblings and three sons. George was also recently coming off of heart valve replacement surgery, a move that dramatically improved his quality of life and taught him the importance of taking care of yourself.

On that note the George I met was relishing in his retirement life- splitting time between Boston (summer) and West Palm Beach FL (winter, but kept creeping longer as George disliked cold weather!). Summers included an annual vacation in the Catskills, where George was the reigning free throw shooting champ (perhaps a foreshadowing as this was before a certain Patriots QB took the helm). Other trips included visits to New York, Seattle, New Jersey, and eventually Chicago to visit grandkids as well as Adele's cousins in California. Last but not least was the annual cruise tour, usually to the Caribbean.

To say George lived a clean life is surely an understatement- to my knowledge he was never drunk (not even for one night), and the only vice that I knew of was a couple days per week at the dog track to wager on the greyhounds (but not too much- see Depression kid reference above). George's other passion was following his Boston sports teams- Red Sox, Patriots, Celtics and Bruins (to a lesser extent).

George (and Adele) have had a profound influence on my kids Jake and Zoe as their only living grandparents- we would talk to them usually once a week to keep up on current events, and of course visit them in both Boston and FL (along with a family-only trip to the Cape, Disney World, etc.)

But perhaps most importantly was the way George took care of himself on a daily basis- he kept his mind sharp by religiously reading the newspaper cover to cover, and he kept his body sharp by exercising at least five days a week. With Adele's cooking he ate well too, although being a Depression kid leaving uneaten food was typically a no-no.

It was this way of life that helped him sustain a high quality of life into his early 90s, and the part that earned my lifelong admiration and respect for this beautiful person. RIP George, may your memory be a blessing.