Ray W. Heisler

IT consultant. Bassist. Drummer. Dog lover. Seinfeld fanatic. Deadhead. Libertarian. Devoted Son. Twin brother.

Ray was born on April 14, 1964 in Long Beach, CA -- to Dr. Richard Heisler, a cardiologist, and Dollie Button Heisler, a stay-at-home mother (and later teacher) -- a full seven minutes before his twin brother Rick, and, thereby, according to the rules of Primogeniture, the first born in line to inherit the Heisler family fortune, such that it was. He grew up in the OC (Orange County), before it was cool to do so, and moved with his family to the then-burgeoning wine country of Temecula, CA – the oasis of the Inland Empire, when he and Rick were ten years old.

While attending Linfield Christian High School (now Linfield Christian School), Ray prospered. He played football, mastered multiple musical instruments in the school band in both the treble and bass clefs, including trombone and tuba, sang in choir, and participated in such school musical productions as “Oliver” (the imperious Noah Claypole) and “The Sound of Music” (zany Uncle Max Detweiler). This creative instinct (his “Red Period”) culminated in his originating for the Linfield stage the lead role of a skinny “Tevye, the Milkman” in its 1982 production of “Fiddler on the Roof.” For his talents, Ray was awarded a partial scholarship to Pepperdine University, which he attended as a theater major for his freshman year of college. Looking for a more secular college experience, Ray transferred to the University of Southern California (USC), continuing a theater education there, until finally transferring again to the greenest of pastures, USC’s superior crosstown rival UCLA (the #1 public school in the nation), which Rick already was attending. Finding home as a Bruin, Ray turned to studying history, earning a B.A. in the subject in 1987, as well as making many lifelong friends in the university’s Delta Eta chapter of the Sigma Chi fraternity along the way.

While at UCLA, Ray also demonstrated an early computer-era facility with information technology consulting. He parlayed a part-time job in the UCLA Telecommunications Department to help pay for tuition into an IT career that would last the rest of his life. After UCLA, Ray’s adventurous spirit and family-shared wanderlust sent Ray off for excitement in Australia, where he hoped to emigrate permanently with his much-in-demand, newly-minted IT skills. However, unable to find quick work to support himself, he, instead, had no choice but to return to California. He resumed IT work in various Big Law firms, including Latham & Watkins, in Los Angeles, for whom he traveled the country tending to its various offices’ IT concerns, and Gray Cary Ware in San Diego, as well as a civilian consultant to the US Navy.

In the mid-2000s, Ray’s life and career took a another turn as he put aside IT work in the big city to be near Dr. Heisler back in Temecula, who continued suffering from his recurrent (and ironic) heart disease. Through these heroic years dutifully tending to his deteriorating father, Ray slowly began adopting his much-worshipped and beloved dad’s mannerisms, aphorisms, packratism, other random “isms”, and strongly-held conservative political beliefs. He even turned a career eye toward a possible new path following his dad into medicine after Dr. Heisler passed away in 2009. But because California nursing schools were impacted and saturated at this time, Ray left for New Mexico seeking entrance into nursing schools there. Yet, he had some career second-thoughts, and decided to move to the Kansas City area, the original home to his parents, to be near his close cousins and extended familial support system.

It was in Kansas City that this California born, bred, educated son of the Golden State truly came into his own, leaving it behind with nary a look back. He became an IT consultant at Price Brothers Management, rekindled his musical inclinations and began playing in his cousin’s roadhouse band on both drums and bass on their regular Thursday night jam sessions (and likened by his cousin Keith to the Dead’s Phil Lesh!), gained numerous friends amid his new Midwest cohort, and became a loyal Royals and Chiefs fan. Ray grew to love working for Price Brothers, in particular, and the Midwest, in general, turning down Rick’s constant efforts to coax him and his computer skills out to the exploding Silicon Valley. Ray picked up other new friends in the senior dogs his sensitive heart (underneath that sarcastic, crusty exterior) rescued from shelters, including Hazel Grace, and his latest, Cassie, named for one of his favorite Grateful Dead songs, Cassidy.

During this time, Ray also resumed living with another aged parent, this time his mother Dollie after transporting her up from her retirement community in Texas to be near him. Once again this proved to all the saint Ray truly was for nursing yet another ailing parent along in their final years, until Dollie succumbed to pancreatic cancer and early Alzheimer’s Disease in her nursing home in June of 2020.

Ray, a huge fan of jamband (Grateful Dead!), jazz (Quincy Jones and New Orleans JazzFest!) bluegrass, Broadway musicals (he still fancied himself a star of the Great White Way), and roadhouse rock, was a Deadhead and Phishhead for the last 30 or so years of his life. Along with Rick and friends, he took in countless of their concerts, seemingly anywhere within an hour plane flight or 8 hour drive from their respective homes.

Ray never married, but found love. He never had children, but had second and third cousins who laughed with, and loved, him dearly. Perhaps, ultimately, Ray succeeded in becoming what he wanted to be the most – his father, which is probably the biggest compliment anybody could ever give him.

Ray passed away quickly from a heart attack, what would be his second such health crisis, on or about October 30, 2021, a night for which he still held tickets to Phish’s four night Halloween stand at the MGM Arena in Las Vegas. Ray is survived by Rick, a lawyer and writer who lives in the Bay Area, and his many friends, work colleagues, dogs, and cousins who adored him. Conforming to his wishes, Ray's remains will be cremated.

Ray, you were taken too soon. What happened to our only half-joking retirement together in Thailand?!

So…what can one say about a guy like Ray?

He was complicated.

He was simple.

He was hard.

He was soft.

He was loved.

He cared.

He laughed.

He joked.

He worked.

He sang.

He partied.

He played.

He lived.

He will be missed.

______________________

I pictured a rainbow

You held it in your hands

I had flashes

But you saw the plan

I wandered out in the world for years

While you just stayed in your room

I saw the crescent

You saw the whole of the moon

The whole of the moon

- Mike Scott, The Waterboys

-----------------

Fare you well, fare you well

I love you more than words can tell

Listen to the river sing sweet songs

To rock my soul

- Robert Hunter/Jerry Garcia, Grateful Dead.

Here is a link to his mother's obituary: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/kansas-city-mo/dollie-stannard-9217844