An Obit
By Bob Gielow
October 15, 2022
October 15, 2022
Charles “Chuck” Freeman, 61, was a caring husband, father, grandfather, brother, friend, and dog owner. While his death on March 14th was unexpected to those who knew him, it seems Chuck had long anticipated when his days would be numbered.
Raised by his parents Russell and Judith, in Twentynine Palms, California, young Chuck was adept in math and reveled in following baseball statistics, especially for his beloved Los Angeles Dodgers. He earned a perfect score on the math SAT and was accepted into the University of California, Los Angeles, “on scholarship” (as he was quick to point out). At UCLA, Chuck fell in love with his future wife, Carolyn, even though she “hated numbers with a passion.”
Graduating from UCLA with both a Bachelor’s and Master’s Degree in Mathematics, Chuck pursued a career in actuarial science. He spent ten years each at State Farm (Analyst), Cigna (Senior Analyst), and Northwestern Mutual (Chief Actuary & Risk Officer). He told his children that working at one company for more than ten years would stifle their imagination.
In 2012, Chuck founded Freeman Analytics, a consulting firm devoted to “helping life insurance companies understand their data.” Chuck was described by clients as being a “wizard in developing and interpreting formulas that summarized life expectancy data.” According to his colleague, Jason Strathman, “with enough information about an individual, Chuck could probably guess the hour and minute when someone would die,” which is what he seems to have done for himself.
The note Chuck left on the kitchen table on the morning of 3/14, included the following. “To my family, my end will come today. I always did love ‘Pi Day.’ You will find my body and damaged heart out in the backyard, at that spot behind the shed where I watch the planes land at Burbank Airport. I hope you’ll understand why I did not tell you all ahead of time. I also hope you’ll understand why I did not fear or try to postpone my demise.”
Next to this prescient note were sealed letters Chuck addressed to his wife, sister, and two children: with words of condolence, an acknowledgment that he had been acting “pretty somber these past few weeks” and “didn’t talk much to them,” along with apologies for his fatalistic nature. Besides these letters were three hand-written pages of life expectancy formulas, in Chuck’s dense print, dated November of 2015. Underlined at the end of these calculations was “Monday, March 14, 2022, at 10:51 am PST.”
If Chuck was off in his prediction by a minute or two, no one will ever know.
If Chuck chose to end his own life on the date he had predicted, the LA County Coroner found no evidence to support a self-harm theory and confirmed the cause of death was a myocardial infarction.
If Chuck simply had psychic powers, well … his wife often wondered about that possibility.
Chuck is survived by his wife Carolyn, son Jacob (Pasadena, CA); daughter Brenda, son-in-law David, and granddaughter Hannah (Irvine, CA); sister Connie (Lawrence, KS); and two slow-moving Beagles named Reggie and Duke. The members of Chuck’s immediate family have agreed to destroy and not read the folders with their names on them found in the top drawer of Chuck’s filing cabinet.
Raised by his parents Russell and Judith, in Twentynine Palms, California, young Chuck was adept in math and reveled in following baseball statistics, especially for his beloved Los Angeles Dodgers. He earned a perfect score on the math SAT and was accepted into the University of California, Los Angeles, “on scholarship” (as he was quick to point out). At UCLA, Chuck fell in love with his future wife, Carolyn, even though she “hated numbers with a passion.”
Graduating from UCLA with both a Bachelor’s and Master’s Degree in Mathematics, Chuck pursued a career in actuarial science. He spent ten years each at State Farm (Analyst), Cigna (Senior Analyst), and Northwestern Mutual (Chief Actuary & Risk Officer). He told his children that working at one company for more than ten years would stifle their imagination.
In 2012, Chuck founded Freeman Analytics, a consulting firm devoted to “helping life insurance companies understand their data.” Chuck was described by clients as being a “wizard in developing and interpreting formulas that summarized life expectancy data.” According to his colleague, Jason Strathman, “with enough information about an individual, Chuck could probably guess the hour and minute when someone would die,” which is what he seems to have done for himself.
The note Chuck left on the kitchen table on the morning of 3/14, included the following. “To my family, my end will come today. I always did love ‘Pi Day.’ You will find my body and damaged heart out in the backyard, at that spot behind the shed where I watch the planes land at Burbank Airport. I hope you’ll understand why I did not tell you all ahead of time. I also hope you’ll understand why I did not fear or try to postpone my demise.”
Next to this prescient note were sealed letters Chuck addressed to his wife, sister, and two children: with words of condolence, an acknowledgment that he had been acting “pretty somber these past few weeks” and “didn’t talk much to them,” along with apologies for his fatalistic nature. Besides these letters were three hand-written pages of life expectancy formulas, in Chuck’s dense print, dated November of 2015. Underlined at the end of these calculations was “Monday, March 14, 2022, at 10:51 am PST.”
If Chuck was off in his prediction by a minute or two, no one will ever know.
If Chuck chose to end his own life on the date he had predicted, the LA County Coroner found no evidence to support a self-harm theory and confirmed the cause of death was a myocardial infarction.
If Chuck simply had psychic powers, well … his wife often wondered about that possibility.
Chuck is survived by his wife Carolyn, son Jacob (Pasadena, CA); daughter Brenda, son-in-law David, and granddaughter Hannah (Irvine, CA); sister Connie (Lawrence, KS); and two slow-moving Beagles named Reggie and Duke. The members of Chuck’s immediate family have agreed to destroy and not read the folders with their names on them found in the top drawer of Chuck’s filing cabinet.
|
A college administrator by day, Bob Gielow (he/him) spins tales in formats we all use when communicating with each other: text messages, emails, fictional Wikipedia posts, and diary entries all allow him to be clinical and thorough in describing his characters, their thinking and actions … without diminishing his ability to explore the resulting human emotions. Bob utilizes these epistolary styles, and others, to tell tales that frequently explore the most common of human experiences, death.
|
|