This memorial website was created in memory of our loved one, Harold Simon, 75, born on July 8, 1938 and passed away at 6:15 p.m. on February 12, 2014.
Harold passed very peacefully while surrounded by his family. He lived courageously with Lou Gehrig's disease for 10 years and inspired everyone who knew him.
A memorial service was held on Sunday March 9th. Thank you to everyone who attended. We are very grateful for your friendship and support. We have uploaded some photos taken by Analyn Dolopo-Simon at the memorial and the reception that followed. We have also included the transcript of Harry's remembrance speech in the "stories" section.
In March of last year, Harold recorded a short (6 min) video message for his friends to be shared after his death. It has been uploaded to the video gallery.
Please feel welcome to upload photos as our digital collection is limited.
For those who wish to dedicate remembrances to the ALS Association in Harold's memory, you can do so online (alsa.org--click on the donate tab), by phone (888-949-2577) or by mail (The ALS Association Development Department 1275 K Street, NW Suite 250 Washington, DC 20005).
Harold's physical presence will be forever missed, but his love and spirit are eternal.
Tributes
Leave a tributeWe all miss both of you.
Renate
Fünf Jahre sind für uns Sterblichen eine lange Zeit. Zum Glück hast du in deiner „Welt“ wenig damit zu tun. Ich weiß du hast viel zu tun, und bist in der Gesellschaft deiner gleichgesinnten. Enjoy
We love you and miss you body and soul.
A loving family is a living tribute to a good man.
PEACE and happy memories!
It’s been a year since your death and I still miss you as much as ever. The past year was definitely challenging.
Occasions that used to be so happy and joyful became days to just get through: Father’s Day, your birthday, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s Eve and many others. I particularly missed you during the ALS walk, the trip to Denmark for Sabine’s wedding, and the Christmas Eve candlelight service which reminded me so much of you.
I wonder if the sadness will subside or if it just becomes something I get used to, a new “set point.” I know you would not want me to be sad but to make you proud of how I live the rest of my life, and I’m determined to do that. But life will never be the same without you, and with each passing month I realize just how much of a positive impact you had on me. You were truly an inspiration.
With love,
Your daughter Claudia
"Liebe Tante Marlene, lieber Harry, liebe Claudia,
wir trauern mit euch um Harald.
Ich finde, der o.g. Spruch aus dem Johannes-Evangelium passt sehr gut zu Harald, denn er hatte einen festen und unerschütterlichen Glauben, der ihm auch während der schweren Krankheit über vieles hinweggeholfen hat.
Ich denke im Moment sehr oft an die zwei Wochen, die ich über Weihnachten/Neujahr 2000/2001 bei euch verbringen durfte. Bei dieser Gelegenheit habe ich natürlich auch Harald etwas besser kennen gelernt. Er war ganz sicher einer der authentischsten Menschen, die ich je kennenlernen durfte und sowohl sein spezieller Sinn für Humor und sein scharfer Verstand haben mich sehr beeindruckt. Es war egal, ob man mit ihm in den Baumarkt ging oder mit ihm Küchenschränke montiert hat, es machte Spaß und man konnte dabei etwas lernen.
Ich erinnere mich sehr gern an Harald und dies wird auch immer so bleiben.
Matthias, Karin, Daniel und Moritz Unger
He enjoyed himself so much and that brought joy to me for giving him that chance.
We had many occasions to meet him and enjoy his and
Marlenes company.
I will always remember Harald, he mend a lot to me.
"Wer im Gedächtnis seiner Lieben lebt, ist nicht tot -
er ist nur fern. Tot ist nur, wer vergessen wird."
Wir trauern mit Euch um Harald. Bei unserem letzten Besuch im Jahr 2007 konnten wir einige Zeit mit Euch verbringen. Harald war immer ein interessanter Gesprächspartner und fand auch einen guten Draht zu unseren Mädchen Katharina und Hannah. Bei seinen telefonischen Kontakten konnte auch Berthold miterleben, wie gelassen und dankbar für die Unterstützung durch seine Familie Harald die schwere Krankheit angenommen und damit gelebt hat.
Wir werden ihn stets in guter Erinnerung behalten.
Berthold Unger
Thomas, Claudia, Katharina und Hannah Unger
in tiefer Trauer denken wir an Harold.
Wir haben immer sehr bewundert, wie tapfer und mit wie viel Kraft er diese Krankheit ertragen hat. Gerne erinnern wir uns an unsere Reise in die USA 2007, während der wir richtig viel Zeit miteinander verbringen durften. Unvergessen sind die gemeinsamen Fahrten im Wohnmobil quer durch Kalifornien.
Wir werden ihn stets in unseren Herzen tragen.
Agathe und Auwi
Liebe Tante Marlene, lieber Harry, liebe Claudia,
in diesem Sinne teilen wir Eure Trauer und sind in Gedanken bei Euch.
Ich werde mich immer gern an Onkel Harald als aufmerksamen Gesprächspartner erinnern, mit dem man gute und intensive Gespräche führen konnte. Meine ganze Bewunderung für den Umgang mit seiner Krankheit.
Irene + Axel
Ich tausche nur die Räume.
Ich leb' in euch -
und geh' durch eure Träume.
Michelangelo Buonarroti
In dieser Weise hatte Harald Leben und Tod bewundernswert miteinander versöhnt. In Liebe und Trauer sind wir bei Euch liebe Marlene, Claudia und Harry.
Inge & Helmut
With our Deepest Sympathy to the Simon Family.
We admired Harold for his cheerfulness and good spirit he had all through his illness.He touched our lives in many ways.
Our thoughts and prayers are with you at this difficult time.
in love and friendship
Renate and Edgar
In größter Hochachtung vor Harald, der seinen Weg mit so viel Gelassenheit und Lebensmut gegangen ist und in Gedanken bei Euch, liebe Marlene, Claudia und lieber Harry, um die Trauer um Harald mit Euch zu teilen.
Julia Raab mit Familie
We are very saddened by the news that Harold passed away. We are with you in our thoughts and prayers. We are thankful that we could come and see Harold three years ago and he was able to still meet our girls.
The Lindsay-Raabs, Tilburg, the Netherlands
ich denke an Euch und teile Eure Trauer um Onkel Harald. Er ist ein großes Vorbild für mich und ich werde ihn immer in meinen Gedanken halten.
Leave a Tribute
We all miss both of you.
Renate
You are missed
You are missed, your stories of travel, and all that good advice. I know you are well and smiling down upon us. Analyn
Harry Simon's Remembrance
Below is the text of Harry Simon's remembrance given at the memorial service on March 9th:
One of my earliest memories of childhood was going river rafting in inner tubes with my father and some family friends. I was 4 or 5 and we were living in the midwest at the time. I remember it was a warm and sunny afternoon.
As fate would have it, I ended up falling out of my inner tube and ultimately under the water currents. After being underwater a few seconds, I opened my eyes, looked around me and thought to myself…”this is not good”
After a little more time went by, I looked up toward the sky through the water and saw a hand come from what seemed to be out of the sky, through the water, and grabbed me and pulled me up out of the water and back into the inner tube. It was my father’s hand that had saved me. It wouldn’t be the last time in my life that he would save me.
My father always preached the virtues of hard work and saving money, and was always willing to go out of his way to help with achieving those goals. My very first job was that of a morning paperboy delivering the morning paper 7 days a week. In those days, it was a 10 speed bicycle and a shoulder pouch to carry the papers. I was maybe 13 years old or so and started my new career in the middle of winter in December. Living in San Diego that wasn’t a concern.
As fate would have it, that winter ended up being an El Nino driven winter of daily rain and storms, it seemed like. I would get up at 5:00 in the morning, look outside the window at the rain and wind and wonder if the folks on my paper route really did need the newspaper that day and perhaps they could do without it. Just when I decided to give up and go back to bed I would hear a rustle in the house. My father was getting up to help me deliver the papers. Like a postman, no amount of rain was going to prevent the newspapers from being delivered that day. He would take one of the clear plastic bags that was to keep the newspaper dry, put it over his head to keep himself dry and we would go out and deliver the newspapers each morning.
As a family, we refer to that winter as the winter that I got my father a paper route. The lesson I learned from him that winter was that to be successful in life, you need to be able to overcome obstacles.
As we know, he was eventually hit with perhaps the ultimate obstacle (some 30 years later), when he was diagnosed with ALS.
As I approached the age of 16 it was time to learn how to drive. My father always was an adventurous teacher so we went out in the family sedan to terrorize the neighborhood with driving lessons 101. My favorite was learning how to parallel park. As my wife knows, parallel parking….not my thing.
We found a luxury car parked on the street in front of a neighbor’s house and then set forth with the mission of parallel parking right behind it. Attempt after attempt missed the mark. I would either hit the curb with my wheels, or end up parking parallel……..just too far away from the curb. My dad, however, continued to persevere and push me forward until after, what seemed like an eternity, I finally got it and parked successfully behind the neighbor’s nice car. As we hooted and hollered and celebrated our success, we looked over to the neighbor’s house and saw thru their front window the husband and wife couple standing looking out at us with sheer horror. I then realized that our driving test around their highly prized vehicle must have been quite a frightening sight to them.
Nevertheless, the lesson I learned was that to accomplish a goal you needed to be able to persevere and push yourself forward. Something my father would have to do as well after he was diagnosed with ALS.
As I continued to get older and eventually move out of the house to live in various apartments, my dad was always willing to help out with the move. One move that was particularly eventful was one where I was moving my household furnishings into a storage unit. As fate would have it, I selected a unit that was much, much too small for my furnishings. I’ll never forget the look on my father’s face when he rolled up the door to the unit and saw how undersized it was. As his jaw practically hit the ground, he turned to me and said “this will be like trying to put 2 pounds of shit in a 1 pound can………”
Can’t say I would have described my prized household furnishings as 2 pounds of shit, but I got his message. This wasn’t going to be easy. Nevertheless, being the German engineer that he was, he went about to meticulously place each piece into the storage unit in such a perfect manner, that at the end of the day, it all made it in.
As he rolled down the door and it closed snug with everything safe inside, he looked at me and said “if it doesn’t fit, we make it fit……” A lesson in adaptability……Unfortunately, this was a trait that he would have to utilize to the best of his ability after being diagnosed with ALS. How to make a life fit with a degenerative nerve disease.
I look back and realize that my father had an amazing ability to take relatively mundane life events, a paper route, driver’s education, moving, and convert them to meaningful life lessons.
These were lessons and attributes that he had to successfully utilize to be able to cope with the terrible disease that he was stricken with. As we know, there is no cure for ALS, however he was able to still be successful in enduring the transition from full health to physical decline in a way that he was able to leave a profound impression on those around him, all the way to the very end of his life and beyond.
My neighbor and drinking-buddy
Harold met every new challenge that his condition wrought with tenacity and without complaint, and I found this to be truly inspiring. I will miss hanging out with my neighbor and friend- drinking a beer and a cold Jaeger Meister schnapps while chatting about travel, current events, and our lives.