Bernard, GOOTT M.D. Ph.D.

FUNERAL HOME

American Cremation Service

2888 Loker Avenue East

Carlsbad, California

Bernard, GOOTT Obituary

"Good Fortune Smiled on Me" Age 86, of Del Mar, CA. passed away on the 6th of June, 2016 from complications of heart failure and cancer in the comfort of his home and in the loving care of friends and family. He is survived by his wife, Barbara Joan ("Joan"), sister Sylvia Karro, son Paul Goott (Silvina), son Bernard J. Goott, daughter Leslie Haltiner, and grandchildren: Maximilian and Sabrina Goott and Harper Haltiner. While no memorial services are planned, remembrances can be sent to Joan Goott, 3051 Caminito Sagunto, Del Mar, CA 92014. Memorials preferred in the honor of Dr. Goott to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Planned Parenthood of the Pacific Southwest and KPBS.

To plant trees in memory, please visit the Sympathy Store.

Published by Pioneer Press on Jul. 3, 2016.

Memories and Condolences
for Bernard, GOOTT

Sponsored by St Paul Pioneer Press.

2 Entries

Mark Pettersen

October 25, 2018

My name is mark pettersen, in 1975/6 I lived on your estate at 1 sunfish ln. sunfish lake MN . Dr Goott was kind to me, we played tennis and run together.. He gave me advice, some of which I have been able to use throughout my life.
i am pleased to hear that dr Goott had a long successful life.
I will always remember my time spent with Dr Goott and his family.
Blessings
Mark V Pettersen
Williston ND

Percy and Marilyn Zelnick

September 20, 2016

May 4th, 2016,

Recently, a Lomas Santa Fe Club member noted that Bernie no longer visits. He asked how is it that Berny and I are friends. What's with Bernie? Well, that wasn't hard to answer. Bernie has a lot going on. In the late 1950's, in lieu of surgery, heart specialists passively observed patients wither away. Well there is nothing passive about Berny! Along with Christian Barnard, in the early 60's, he pioneered heart surgery advancements.
Along with his busy professional life, Berny is an extremely well read erudite who knows something about many things. To me, his insight into world history and current events is unmatched. If there is a comprehensive book on a key topical world event, he's read it. On some counts, he is stubbornly conservative; on others, he is liberal. Overall, his sentiments and leanings are balanced. Either way, his thoughts are backed with facts. Berny can be edgy and stubborn; he definitely is not un-opinionated. But swirling in his edgy personality is a humanist heart, packed with values of justice, fair play and generosity to those who are vulnerable and at risk. Read his book Good Fortune Smiled on Me. He is an anti-doctrinaire defender of human rights, a devout environmentalist, a defender of the tenants of Moses' Ten Commandments, Judaic humanism, women's rights, racial justice and so on. But above all, Berny is nothing short of colorful! He's fun.

Berny was born in 1930, in South Africa. He started life in the humblest of beginnings in a racially divided country. His parents, Ada and Paul, were so financially strapped that they were forced to place him in a Jewish orphanage for quite a few years. With this void, Judaic roots inspired by spiritual biblical customs tenderly incubated, nourished, and educated this vulnerable child of four. Young Berny turned to reading and never stopped. Embracing the narratives of authors like Robert Louis Stevenson, Alexander Dumas, Jules Verne, and Rudyard Kipling, from his South African Cape perch, he peered outward and dreamed of adventure and exploration. Like those fictional explorers who ventured in search of new worlds and quests of modernity, he tapped his boundless romantic courage and dared to be different. That's what led him to tackle the most complex of medical challenges, to the frontiers of active medical experimentation. Unfortunately, before he was forty, he paid a price with a major heart attack of his own. Without a miraculous intervention by a doctor just passing by, Berny would have expired. To those who are spiritual, that intervention has meaning; to the atheist, it's coincidence. Regardless, today in 2016, endless survivors of heart surgery owe their extra breaths to Berny and those who boldly pioneered with him and the hand of coincidence.

Berny is outspoken on religion, and that's ok. For those who are Spiritual, his being embraced by a Jewish orphanage during the Depression is God's way. For those who are atheists, the orphanage protecting him was a secular tradition of Jewish humanism. What is not in dispute is that he is Jewish! Finally, when his parents were able to bring the family back together, he was being loved and guided by Orthodox Judaic values. At one point, he actually considered being a rabbi. But life is complex and Spirituality not always easy to like or understand. Ask the Biblical Job? In an extremely fragile state, only six years after he was reunited with his family, Berny lost his dear Ada. This loss was particularly hard and cut him deeply. How does a humane God do this? Never one to wallow in self-pity or despair, using his indefatigable compass, Berny willed to reach out to the stars. In his teens, with Hitler's omnipresent militarism, the Nazi crushing of Jews, with modern anti-Semitism at its peak, the Holocaust, with narratives of Zionism, the World War, Churchill, and major on-going battles, Berny matured by seeking intellectual independence. He studied Darwin's evolution and many facets of science. He spent long nights out on the South African Savannah with his mutt Blackie. The two lay on their backs, embracing and gazing in endless wonder at those planets and starlit skies. From his book, I would go outside and contemplate the heavens, Blackie by my side Together they communed with those lighted and shooting stars. Copernicus, Galileo, Newton were beckoning. Inspired by the Cosmos, science and the heavens, he embraced them as the stuff of life and reality; he turned to the humanism of the Enlightenment for guidance. But in the background, with a whisper, Abrahams' spirit may have been reaching out. As he was turning twenty, a Jewish surrogate, a member of the tribe, Dave Franks, guided Berny to his medical career and backed his encouragement with financial assistance. Underscored by Abraham's legacy, Berny was on his way. And as a doctor and thinker, he assumed his role as a grateful and contributing intellectual Jew. And that's our Berny.

Today, Berny is an involved family man who cares deeply about his two sons, Paul and Berny, and his daughter Leslie. He is a loving grandfather to multiple grandchildren. He is a dedicated husband who loves his Joanie. Oh, how he smiles and pauses when he talks of her.

So, What's with Berny, To me, Berny is the heart of the stuff that underscores Van Gogh's famous painting, Starry Night. Berny's soul is charged with spontaneous combustible emotions. Like Van Gogh's painting, Berny swirls with a fierce surging energy far removed from the ordinary. About Starry Night, Van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo, Perhaps death is not the hardest thing in life looking at the stars always makes me dream of black dots representing towns and villages on a map... Why, I ask myself, shouldn't the shining dots of the sky be as accessible as the black dots on the map ? Just as we take the train to get to Rouen, we take death to reach a star.

In Berny's current journey, life confirms that he has fulfilled his Spirit's legacy. His countless surgical threads have saved countless lives. As the world continues to circle on its axis, Berny's pioneering efforts, through extension, will continue to figuratively save endless millions of lives into perpetuity. A Spirit inspired by Abraham embraces Berny. Now that Spirit is silently winking at him. That Spirit is looking down on Berny and lovingly making an appointment to meet with him at that starlit spot on the South African Savanah. That Spirit's lens only knows Berny in his teenage form, drifting off to experience new worlds. That Spirit is whispering to Berny, Well done. That Spirit understands Berny's love of science and is OK with it. Spiritual love manifests many forms. After all, how else could that Spirit have conscripted Berny to pioneer heart surgery? When a person contributes to the Spirit's causes, as Berny has, that Spirit loves you back. I intuit that Abraham's Spirit is holding a reserved ticket for Berny for that Starry Night journey. It will take Berny to a distinct star that will transport him back to his special place, where he will be liberated to run nimbly again with Blackie in fields of old.

And that's what's with Berny. God bless. Love Percy

Showing 1 - 2 of 2 results