Thomas Anthony MacDowell

Thomas Anthony MacDowell
December 22, 1995 - April 6, 2020
Tom MacDowell died 6 April 2020, an indirect casualty of the covid-19 virus. Tom struggled with prodromal schizophrenia and addiction, afflictions that run in his family. After a period of ups and downs he had been well and sober for three months. The covid-19 response of shutting down all in-person recovery programs contributed to his relapse and death.
Tom was born 22 December 1995 in Stony Brook, New York, the second son of Alastair MacDowell and Geraldine Lamble. His parents, both scientists, had come from England to work at Brookhaven National Laboratory. When he was a year old the family moved to Berkeley where his parents worked for Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Tom and his brother Sam grew up in the family house on Delaware Street and went to Berkeley Public Schools -- Arts Magnet, King Middle School, and Berkeley High from which he graduated in 2014. His parents split up when he was nine. When he was eleven, his father's new partner, Kate Rauch came into his life and he acquired new step siblings, Charles and Beatrice.
Tom was a bright, playful, happy child who smiled and laughed easily. He loved swimming at the YMCA, ski trips to the Sierras, and family trips to the U.K. to visit relatives. He was smart and built his own computers to play video games. Tom was very sociable, he was somebody who his friends thought would find his way to happiness and success in the world.
After high school he attended Berkeley City College. He worked for the California Conservation Corps building trails and was a firefighter in the Santa Cruz mountains in 2017. He wrote clever rap lyrics. He also worked the kinds of jobs available to young people – student jobs, fast food places, a car wash, and recently he trained to be a club bouncer.
At the age of 18, Tom suffered his first mental health crisis. After that time he was in and out of mental health, recovery, and dual diagnosis programs including Kaiser, National Psychiatric Care, New Bridge, and UCSF. During these difficult years his friends said he knew how lucky he was and how many people loved him but he didn't realize what a positive impact he had on others.
Tom is survived by his immediate family in the Bay Area including his parents, Alastair and Geraldine, his brother Sam, his father's partner Kate Rauch and her children, Charles and Beatrice; by his father's mother, Eileen Lauder, and her step children in Scotland; and by his mother's siblings, Anthony Lamble and John Lamble, and their families in England.
Tom's ashes will be scattered in the places that were meaningful to him in the Bay Area and the U.K. Donations in his memory can be made to the Young Adult Early Psychosis Program, UCSF. https://psych.ucsf.edu/path