|
Michael Eliastam
Dear Michael E
I would like to post this on the WMS site,
From Ruth Safier Nathanson;
Kenneth Bloom - husband of Sheila Swartzman - died in San Antonio, Texas on November 3, shortly after his 79th birthday. He died peacefully at home with his children and grandchildren around him, after a very difficult 4 weeks in ICU following a fall, resulting in a fractured head of femur and subsequent complications.
Kenneth was well known to many in our class as a colleague {WMS 1965] and as Sheila’s husband of 56 years
I am writing this as a close friend - others will do justice to his long and illustrious career as a paediatric cardiologist. He was very much an old school, totally dedicated doctor. Medicine and his patients were his life. The many, many babies and children whose lives he saved, and whom he followed into adult life, are legion
As he lay close to death in hospital, one of the admin hospital staff who had recognised his name came to the ward to tell him and to tell Sheila that he had saved her life when he treated her as a baby - and to tell him that she had run marathons, had married and had a family and a good life. It was the only good news that day and was profoundly affecting for Kenneth and for all of us who loved him
Kenneth and I met when we were !4 - at Jewish youth groups and teenage parties - and then again at medical school when Sheila and Kenneth and Michael and I became firm friends. That friendship just thickened and deepened over the years and over the miles that separated us when the Blooms left SA for the USA and we went to Sydney.
We have shared every major life event from those early days - and we literally saw the world together - an amazing friendship that we have felt privileged to have in our lives.
Kenneth was an eccentric, with a great sense of humor, generous, extravagant, and welcoming. He loved good whisky, cheese, apples, good food and company. He was a sentimentalist [in best use of that term]. He cried through every performance of Madam Butterfly, and also the Sound of Music. He watched The Lion King and other Disney films with his young patients and knew every word and song.
Always available with medical advice and good counsel, medicine and his patients were the core of his life. He had an especial rapport with his small patients, and outside the hospital - it was always wonderful to see his eyes light up in the presence of a baby or child — with whom he rapidly established a rapport. His grandsons brought him much joy
His other passion was for music and he shared that passion by passing on his old LPs as he bought better and better recordings – and more and more hi-tech music systems – his quad speakers occupied most of the lounge room in their apartment in Hillbrow when he was a resident. He introduced us to early symphony concerts in the Johannesburg City Hall, to concerts and operas and Ring Cycles around the globe.
He was a great supporter of music in San Antonio – and a very hands-on supporter of the musicians and their families who stayed in their home for weeks on end.
We laughed, played, walked, hiked explored together - 3 doctors and Michael to keep us in touch with the reality of planning, booking, organising our times together.
Through Covid and still now - we zoomed every Sat/Sunday and shared so much of our lives.
Obituaries should be and usually are - accounts of achievements. I think our friendship was and remains an extraordinary achievement in itself.
Loss of a loved spouse is probably the most painful loss in a lifetime. We wish Sheila and Dianne and Robby long life. He will be very sorely missed.
|
