Sunshine Boy

Joy of my life,
Beautiful child,
You came into the world with pain
And took the challenge on
With grace.

Twinkle in your eye,
You loved and laughed and grew
In body, mind, and soul.

Your sweet and gentle spirit reached to
All who crossed your path.
Amidst the difficult of times
You sought for peace Above,
And clung to special, cherished faith
Of God’s unwaivering love.

Today I sent you back to God,
To share your light so rare.
You always were my sunshine boy,
You’ll stay that way for me.

Go rest with Him until the day
We meet in paradise.

Laurel Cohen Baird
October 15, 2003



Doug was born on a bright, hot summer day in August, 13 days late from his due date, in Summit NJ! He was 9 pounds, 7 ½ ounces with beautiful blue eyes and a sweet deep pink mouth. He looked like a month old baby, with perfect skin. He was born with a minor birth defect, called a hypospadius, that blocked his urinary tract. When he was just over 12 hours old he had his first surgery, and a cystotomy (a surgical hole in his abdomen) allowed the urine to flow so his kidneys would not be damaged. Several hours later he began to function normally, and after a few days was able to come home. He had two more surgeries by the time he was three to correct the problem. When he was at New York Hospital waiting for his time to go to surgery I bought him a Curious George and read him the book, Curious George Goes to the Hospital. He fell asleep during the story. Thus began his love for monkeys, which he continued throughout his life.

Doug grew and became a wonderful little boy. I would take him with me on trips around NJ to visit chapters of La Leche League, a support system for breastfeeding mothers, of which I was State Coordinator. When I would get lost I’d ask Doug, “Which way should we go, Doug?” He’d say, “Go left and then right,” and sure enough, that would be the way to get unlost! He was joyful, and always had that twinkle in his eye. His older brother David, and sister Beth, were there to play with and tease, though Beth often got stuck baby sitting, which made them gang up on her. When Doug was four Debbie Sue was born.

Doug was upset he was no longer the baby of the family, and he used to throw tantrums at times. Eventually he outgrew that. When his dad and I divorced it was hard on him, as well as the other children, and he always loved going to visit his dad and go on outings with him. His dad moved to Texas, and Doug visited him there.

In junior high school Doug met his best friends: Tsvi Raab, Lou, Knut, A.J., Jayson, and many more. They were mostly very bright kids that loved to have fun, play video games, and “hang out”. In high school Doug settled down with his studies and was an honor student. When he was invited to be part of the National Honor Society he turned it down, because he thought that was an artifical standard of a student’s value. He did allow himself to be inducted into the German Honor Club, as he loved that language. He was a whiz at math and excelled in all the math courses. He had an amazing work ethic, started with a paper route, then worked for a video store and eventually at the Blue Star Cinema. He was loved by anybody who worked or played with him. He could make any job fun, and although he is brilliant, he made everyone feel like he was on the same level as they. He threw the discus and javalon in high school and earned a Track letter.

He chose to attend Indiana University, and worked very hard throughout his time there. He made great friends, and always knew how to have a good time, even though he was very talented in the math sciences. He was studying for his actuarial, and had passed every exam with the top score. As he came home for the summer between his junior & senior year in 1994, he was planning to study and pass the last of the exams. He arrived back in NJ in early May, just after Mother’s Day. A few days later he called me at work to tell me his leg was hurting him, his left knee to be exact. (I later found out he had collapsed while walking home from town and had to crawl the rest of the way.) I gave him Dr. Danglemeir’s name and phone number, an orthopedist I trusted at the Summit Medical Group, and told him to get looked over by him (I was thinking maybe a torn meniscus from Karate).

He called me right after the examination and told me he had good and bad news. I asked for the good news first—he said it wasn’t going to need arthoscopic surgery. The bad news, it was a tumor at the top of his tibia, the larger shin bone. Dr. Danglemeir was referring him to a top specialist at Memorial Sloane Kettering, Dr. Ralph Marcove. I had to sit down when he told me this. Five days later Doug had surgery, and was diagnosed with a malignant Giant Cell Tumor, 7 centimeters in diameter, the size of a baseball. Dr. Marcove had pioneered curettage and cryosurgery instead of amputation for these tumors, which he found not only salvaged limbs but saved lives. While he was recovering I found him a white monkey, which he kept by his bedside throughout his days of rehabilitating.

Doug spent a painful, despondent summer recovering from this blow. He stopped eating, melted away to 147 pounds, and brooded. His friends Lou and Jason came over constantly to play video games and keep his spirits up. They carried him out of the house and took him in their jeep to the movies. He was forbidden to put any weight on the leg for 5 months while it healed, so was crutch dependent. During this time, Doug rethought his goals. He decided he wanted to teach rather than be an actuarial, and abandoned that endeavor. He felt he didn’t want to spend his life crunching numbers in some back corner for an insurance company or corporation. His dad and I bought him a car which I drove down to him at IU, and he flew back to Bloomington to celebrate his 21st birthday. Very few of his friends knew he was battling cancer. He told them he had a sport injury. Just before he left his doctor ordered an MRI and a CT Scan to make sure nothing was recurring. They were read by the local radiologist and sent on to Memorial Sloane for the radiologist there to look over.

Three weeks later Dr. Marcove called me to tell me they had spotted a suspicious lesion and felt it was imperative Doug come back and have more surgery. When I told Doug the news he asked if he could possibly wait till Thanksgiving to have the procedure. Because it was slow growing in nature, the doc agreed, IF he would get another X-ray in Indiana. Doug did so, and the doc waited for him. Doug started becoming angry and despondent over this. The week before he came home I asked him if he would think about being anointed by our church elders before the surgery, scheduled the Monday before Thanksgiving. His words were, without hesitating, “Set it up, Mom.”

That Sunday the elders at Holy Cross Lutheran Church gathered in the pastor’s study, Doug seated with them surrounding him. They read from the letter of St James…”if any among you is sick, call the elders, and have them pray over you and lay hands on you and anoint you, and be healed…. The effectual prayer of a righteous man availeth much.” That next day Doug had his surgery and the doc found no sign of cancer. The next 9 years Doug would enjoy remission and good health. We all believe it was a miraculous healing.

Doug graduated from IU with honors and was offered a Teaching Assistant position at Delaware University in the Math Science department. For two arduous years he studied and worked towards his Masters and graduated in 1997 with honors. It was there he met Yvonne Ou, his dear friend and on again, off again love. He came back to Summit, I made him an apartment in our basement, and his friend Tsvi found him a job as a consultant at the firm where he worked. He told Tsvi his “brain hurt” and he needed a job that didn’t require so much critical thinking. He was very overqualified for the job, but he loved it. He learned a great deal about computer hardware, software, and was a phenomina. Tsvi left the company and moved up to a better spot. Doug followed. Tsvi made another move and Doug followed. Tsvi came on board with Johnson and Johnson as server support and in May 2003, Doug again followed. He was so excited about the new job, having consulted there for two years.

Doug loved to travel, and had made several trips to Amsterdam, Japan, Germany, Canada, and all over the US. He flew to Las Vegas to stand up for his brother at his wedding, flew to San Francisco to visit me, then to Montreal. In late May Doug began to lose his hearing. He saw a top ear specialist who tried conservative therapies, and in July fitted him with digital hearing aids. I urged him to go into NYC to the Eye and Ear Infirmary and see a specialist there. He promised if the hearing didn’t improve he would make an appointment after Labor Day.

He celebrated his 30th birthday August 23, 2003, having a raucous, funfilled time with his pals from work and his long time friends he’d known from junior high school. He had been working, playing and traveling hard, and had lost weight and was becoming fatigued. He did not have the energy to do his Nordic Track work outs, his BoFlex or his stationary Bike. As much as he had loved riding his Honda racing motorcycle, he had stopped because he couldn’t hear and felt it was dangerous. He made the appointment with the New York ear specialist, Dr. Chris Linstrom, to be seen the end of September. Meantime he and Tsvi took in a seminar in North Carolina.

The end of September he saw Dr. Linstrom, started on a prednisone regimen, hoping to reverse the hearing loss, the assumption being it was an autoimmune reaction that caused the deafness. The doc also had great experience in choclear implants that could restore hearing, and Doug was full of hope and enthusiasm with the possibilities.

His girl friend Yvonne had graduated from University of Minnesota in June and had found a teaching job in Orlando Florida, and invited him to come visit. He flew down October 3 to enjoy a mini vacation. Saturday he began to have chills and fever, cold symptoms, and sweats. By Sunday, as he was preparing to return to NJ, he became more ill, and so weak he asked Yvonne to get a wheelchair to get him through the airport concourse. Somehow he managed to get home, driving his dark green Mini Cooper that he loved so. He collapsed in his bedroom, unable to keep food and fluid down. October 8 he called his friend Rita, Yvonne’s sister who lived nearby, and asked her to take him to the hospital.

There he was admitted to the ICU and told his kidney and liver were in failure. They worked on him all day, hydrating him and testing him, unable to find the cause of his illness. Specialists and more specialists were called in, frantically trying to help him. At 9:30 p.m. Rita called to tell me his dilemma. Three hours later I was on a plane out of Oakland CA bound for NJ. Debbie had rushed up to see him and reported he looked terribly ill. She was weeping. She picked me up and we ran to see him at Overlook Hospital in Summit. The next day we transferred him to UMDNJ Medical Center in Newark, planning a liver transplant to save his life. He was on kidney dialysis continuously, and soon went into respiratory failure and needed to be put on a ventilator.

We called the elder, Scott Strikland, from Holy Cross and asked him to come anoint Doug. The following night Doug crossed over, leaving his painful body behind. The autopsy revealed he had an aggressive, acute mylecytic leukemia that struck him suddenly, stealthily, and maliciously. The doctors were never able to diagnose it while he was alive.

Doug’s life was far too short, but it was rich with love, adventure, and unfailing humor. He continues to make his presence felt among his friends and family. He will be forever loved and treasured by those of us who knew him. He will always be our Sunshine Boy.



Donations to the American Cancer Society and The Leukemia & lymphoma Society in Doug’s name are appreciated.



You Have Been Loved

She takes the back road and the lane
past the school that has not changed
in all this time she thinks of when the boy was young
all the battles she had won
just to give him life

That man
she loved that man
for all his life
but now we meet to take him flowers
and only God knows why

For what's the use in pressing palms
when children fade in mother's arms
it's a cruel world
we've so mch to lose
and what we have to learn, we rarely choose

So if it's God who took her son
he cannot be the one living in her mind

Take care my love, she said
don't think that God is dead
take care my love, she said
you have been loved.

If I was weak, forgive me
but I was terrified
you brushed my eyes with angels wings, full of love
the kind that makes devils cry

So these days
my life has changed
and I'll be fine
but she just sits and counts the hours
searching for her crime

So what's the use of pressing palms
if you won't keep such love from harm
it's a cruel world
you've so much to prove

And heaven help the ones who wait for you
we I've no daughters, I've no sons
guess I'm the only one
living in my life

Take care my love, HE said
don't think that God is dead
take care my love, he said
you have been loved


















Midi Selection: Amazing Grace

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