Daniel I Newman

“He was a good hearted, fair minded, adventurous spirit.”

Daniel I Newman was born on August 31, 1957 and died on July 7, 2016. A service celebrating his life will take place at 2pm on July 27 at Westminster Presbyterian Church at 1624 NE Hancock Street, Portland, OR. He was a brilliant man and one who worked hard to bring restoration, healing and order out of what needed improvement. To that end, he wrote his own obituary. His words follow:

Daniel was born in Brooklyn, New York, before it was chic. Despite the mundane horrors of a typically clandestine dysfunctional family, he remembers his childhood as mostly good. The dead end street where he grew up (nobody knew what a cul-de-sac was back then) was a wonderful playground for stoopball, punchball, and ringalevio (RING – UH – LEE – VEE – OH). Bigger empty lots and schoolyards were for football variations: some tame, others more violent, but all fun for a boy with strong thighs who could run fast.

Summers were spent at the family country home in Lake Lincolndale, New York, where creeks, snakes, toads, sticky tar roads, go carts, and murky lakes with rafts were a way of life. His boyhood heroes were the 1969 Miracle New York Mets, especially Tom Seaver, and Tommie Lee Agee when he stole home in the World Series.

He was always an overachiever, skipping third grade, graduating third in his high school class of 1250 students, and getting one of the highest SAT scores in New York City in 1973. He was then accepted into and graduated from the State University of New York 7 year B.A.-M.D. program, getting his M.D. with Alpha Omega Alpha honors at age 23, before he could even grow a proper moustache.

He couldn’t stop studying, finishing his internal medicine residency in 1984, pain medicine fellowship in 1990, doctor of naturopathic medicine in 2002, and master of science in oriental medicine in 2008. He is grateful that his outstanding student loan documents got burned when he did!

His 35 years in medicine were varied and fascinating to him. At one time or another, he practiced internal medicine, pain medicine, emergency medicine, naturopathic medicine and Chinese medicine. He was president of a medical group that staffed 5 clinics, consulted with numerous private clients and state governments, taught internationally, and was appointed by the governor as the first Chairman of the newly established Washington State Board of Naturopathy.

But, his greatest career satisfaction came from his private practice. From 2003 until the pernicious pineapple in his chest forced his retirement in January 2016, he specialized in seeing chronically very ill patients. Many of these had Chronic Lyme Disease, and most had been given up on by their physicians, families, and even themselves as having hope for recovery, until he intervened. The fulfillment of seeing his patients recover, and feeling their loving gratitude brought him joy beyond words.

Daniel loved nature and athletics, including wilderness backpacking, kayaking in the Ridgefield Wildlife Refuge on innumerable occasions, and going too fast on racing bicycles and cross country skis. He was bitten by the martial arts bug in his teens as well, got his black belt in Tae Kwon Do while in medical school, and eventually mellowed into Tai Ch’I as his body insisted on acting its age.

He had the incredibly good fortune to be survived by not one, but two great kids: the Amazing Anya Danielle Newman, and the Just as Amazing Jacob Kendel Newman, along with his stepchildren, including Alex and Aaron. They put up with him, despite his plentiful production of poetry, persistent penchant for pitifully unpassable puns, onerous onomatopoeia, nagging neologisms, impaling echolalia, and alienating alliteration. Yet, they still love him.

As he struggled with advancing cancer during his last few years, the loving thoughts and prayers of extended family, friends, and acquaintances gave him peace, strength, energy, and comfort beyond measure.

And, of course, there is his wonderful wife, Laurie Lynn Newman, for whom he fulfilled his promise that his third marriage would not end in divorce. Her elixir of love kept him alive with daily transfusions well beyond his expected time. He admired her, and was always confident that her courage, brilliance, talent, and spiritual enlightenment would carry on where he left off.