[Nfbv-discuss] FW: The Passing of Paul Schafer

[Michelle Clark]

All,

 

I am not certain if anyone knows this fellow, but I thought because he
participated in the Section 508 Coordinators job, was a skier, and happened
to be blind, it was worth forwarding this message sent to us.

 

Michelle

 

FYI

 Sadly, many of us at the Department of State are devastated to learn of the
passing of Paul Schafer.  The email from his supervisor says, 

 

"I know that this is very unexpected news.   The week of April 7th Paul had
a stroke.  He came out of that stroke with both his sense of humor and his
senses all intact and quickly recovered the strength of his left side.  He
was at the Virginia outpatient center and because he had no family he was
released to stay with me and my husband.  Paul was doing so well that we all
guessed that by the time we could get to his first outpatient therapy
assessment they would say that he should just get back to work.

 

Sometime during early Sunday morning Paul died peacefully in his sleep.  I
can only guess that he another stroke.

 

My office will be sending out a Department notice once we have a location to
do a celebration of life.    Paul will be cremated, as no arrangements or
will or advance directives were made.  Donations would be gratefully
accepted toward the cost of his cremation and then to an organization that
trains guide dogs.

 

I felt privileged to get to know Paul more and I know he will be greatly
missed for his humor, his humanity and the wonderful work he did for us."

 

Paul has been a tremendous mentor to me and was always incredibly generous
with his time and his knowledge.  I will miss him personally and
professionally, as I am sure everyone who has worked with him will.  I don't
know if you were aware that he was a black slope skier and had his own
YouTube channel, "blindskierdude" :
http://www.youtube.com/user/BlindSkierDude; it includes his last trip at the
end of February.  I watched it - first of all, I wouldn't have been on the
slope, but if I had been, there were about 5 or 6 spots where I would
certainly have gone into hysterics and given up.  But not Paul!   As a
sighted person who is terrified of skiing (my ski lessons did not go well),
I was in total awe of his strength of character, his courage, and his joie
de vivre.   As I mentioned to colleagues who have been working closely with
me along with Paul on the video captioning project, Paul "saw" life in ways
many of us could envy and attacked it head on - his skiing was just one
expression of his amazingly positive attitude.  We will miss him.

 

Please share this information with anyone who you think should know.  Once I
have the information about the event to celebrate of his life, I will let
you know.

 

Sadly,

Leslie

 

 

 

 

 

 

Leslie Brant Teixeira

Project Manager, Video Captioning Implementation (VCI) Project

M

Department of State

202-736-7150 (6-7150)

 

link for improved email etiquette and management:  Save Our
<http://emailcharter.org/>  Inboxes! Adopt the Email Charter!

 

 





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