SHOCKING NEWS UPON MY RETURN HOME TO CATCH UP WITH THE
URGENT CALLS AND MESSAGES REGARDING BUSINESS DEFERRED-
GARY H. SIMPSON, A FRIEND IN NEED FOR OVER THIRTY YEARS DIED SUDDENLY
ON THE EVE OF MY COURT DATE WITH HIM!
Oct. 22, 2001
Among my phone messages when I picked them up after dropping Joe off after our marathon run together and our victory celebration dinner with the family was one that came in on Friday from Eileen, Gary's paralegal assistant. I had just visited with them before going on to New Orleans, and had signed the copy of the corrected interrogatories, which were due on Monday for a trial appearance to follow. I had faxed and mailed the corrected copies besides having signed the final page before leaving, so I figured it had to do with that matter already taken care of, even though she did sign off saying that it was urgent and that I should get back to her as an emergency. I figured that was not necessary on Saturday night late, especially since I would be going over to Gary Simpson's office on Monday morning amid my errands to see what needed to be done next to get the housing matter settled.
I left on a multi-venue mission, to sign my 2000 tax returns finally prepared at the accountant's office, to apply for a five-year visa to India with a $150 cash fee and two passport photos, and all the copies of the legal stuff pertaining to the house. I figured that Gary's office was the closest-within a few hundred feet of Joe Auk ward's house, so I would stop over there first. I called as I was on my way.
Joy answered the phone, and I said to her that I had received a call from Eileen about contacting them urgently. Joy burst into tears, saying, "Of course, you had no way of knowing." It was then she who told me.
Gary H. Simpson, 57, my lawyer and friend for 36 years and who had helped me out through the custody suit (his first big case when I was directed to him through legal aid when he and Joy were friends) through wills and changes, through the big struggle at GWU with the DePalma crisis, and now for the past several years in battling the takeover and sale from under me of my house-Gary Simpson died suddenly on Wednesday.
He was getting along very well after his hip replacement at Johns Hopkins two months ago, which had given us the two months' extension on the hearings and suit progress for the Derwood home. He had suggested that if he were out, I should contact a Dan Kennedy, but when I called him and he returned my call, without w\either of us ever talking with each other, Gary had said he was back in full action and I would not need to have any other help. So, I went to visit him on Friday before leaving on the ACS New Orleans trip. He was doing well getting around with a cane. Apparently on Wednesday, he threw a thromboembolus, and died suddenly.
I visited Joy who had family staying at all places around the house, on couches and the floor, since I heard there that there would be a Memorial Service at Pumphrey's Funeral Home in Bethesda at 1:00 PM. Besides knocking the stuffing out of my legal; case which has been thoroughly prepared with Gary and ready for this week's hearings, I was shocked. I went to the Pumphrey Funeral Home and signed the Guest Registry, but could not stay, since I had to turn in the passport and visa application before noon at the India Embassy, and went on to do so.
Now, what does this mean for me? I am getting the Sunday paper, which contains a picture and obituary. I called Keith Carr to tell him about these sudden events. He and I will get together next week. I called Dan Kennedy again, whom I actually talked with this time, but he was in court and was going to attend the Memorial Service, and now I have an appointment with him on Wednesday to go over with him all the documents and the ground I had prepared with Gary over so long a time.
Thirty-six years it has been, and throughout this time I have had a lawyer younger than I -but no more. I will also call Paul Shorb who will b e interested to know my response since he had worked closely with Gary during my defense against the charges leveled by Ralph De Palma, the former surgery department chairman, (whom I saw at the ACS in New Orleans, looking thirty years older in the ten years and another fifty pounds fatter) which were disproven and formed the occasion for his firing from GWU.
Once again, I seem to be alone in trying to continue my struggles, and the allies that I once had no longer know about these events as they have unfolded. I will now go to make the acquaintance of a new lawyer whom Gary had hand picked as an expert in real estate law to defend against the attempts by the former dominant occupants to sell my home and cluster develop it for a handsome profit on my original capital investment-against me.