Claus-Stefan Globig

I, Claus-Stefan Hans Dieter Globig, passed peacefully at the home I shared with my beloved Teresa after 5 years of fighting the disease that will one day be eradicated: cancer. Mine was the version of a highly aggressive prostate cancer which quickly metastasized to the bones.

Teresa: I love you now, I always have and I always will. You have been my angel, with me every step of the way, from our blissful years of pre-diagnosis joy to the daily battling of my disease: from radiation, EBRT and brachytherapy to hormone treatments and over a dozen rounds of chemotherapy; from medication side effects to depression itself; and from spontaneously fractured ribs to the metal pins of my broken femur. It was very difficult for you, and I am ever grateful for all you've done. Remember me, and us, at our finest; my heart & soul are yours!

I never had the luxury of hoping for a cure or making plans for the future, such as international travel so I could share some of the wondrous places I've seen with my beloved Teresa: in hindsight, my physical deterioration was steady and inevitable, and I often slipped into memories for solace and joy. I can only thank God for the memories and dreams which helped rescue me from pain and despair.

Born in Darmstadt, Germany, the eldest of three children, my parents, Rose-Marie and F. Claus, put me and my younger sisters, Isabel and Susanne, on the S.S. Atlantic in September of 1959 to travel from Rotterdam, Holland, to New York City in order to start a new life.

My parents instilled in me a love of life, travel, and of standing up for my ideals; they fostered a passion for literature, arts, sports and, above all, for fair play and accepting others for who they are. My mother, in particular, shared with me her disdain for those who are rude, for the self-centered, and for those who are miserly in spirit or in their actions.

Throughout my life, favorite pasttimes included: playing hockey on Woods Lake, backgammon and chess, photography, darkroom printing, writing poetry, short stories and screenplays, playing competitive tennis, participating in the fencing club at K- College, and traveling throughout Europe and the United States. I was a voracious reader, from The Hardy Boys, Kerouac, Goethe, and Hoelderlin to Dr. Seuss, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Hemingway and Bukowski. Don't get me wrong, I also enjoyed The New Yorker and Sports Illustrated! Curious by nature, both reading and writing were activities I pursued out of love.

Always a lover of the fine arts, my taste was wide-ranging: from Braque, Picasso, Gilot and Chagall to Peter Max, Warhol, Lebadang, Hiroshige and Dali, plus locals such as sculptor Kirk Newman, photographer Norm Carver plus Kaitlyn Marie and John Robert Kreiger.

Before I forget, let me back up to earlier days: after spending two years in New York City and Hamilton, OH, we finally settled in Kalamazoo, MI. I graduated from Winchell Elementary, where I was introduced to the tunes of Herman's Hermits in the sixth grade.

Every day after school my mother and I spent an hour on German lessons before she made dinner for my father's arrival from work at six o'clock. I loved that time with her, and was always grateful to be fluent in two languages while maintaining a working knowledge of French as well.

I graduated from Oakwood Junior High and that summer, at age fourteen, my parents stashed me on a plane in Detroit destined for Amsterdam - the first of numerous travels to Europe throughout my most formative years - and after a night in Holland's capital I trained it down to Switzerland where I lived with family friends for eight weeks in the beautiful village of Vico Morcote, just west of Lugano.

It was a wonderful summer for hiking and devouring chocolates, and for dreamy, lazy afternoons motor-boating on the Ticino Canton Lake that shares shores with Italy and Switzerland.

After several more weeks with my parents visiting relatives and playing tourist, I started my studies at Loy Norrix High School, where I lettered in tennis with a .900 winning percentage.

During my first collegiate stint, I reveled in often secluding myself in a campus piano room where Beethoven's nine symphonies transfixed me for hours. Six months later my gypsy spirit broke through and I headed back to Europe. Returning stateside a year later, I attended Kalamazoo College, this time mature enough to actually study for two years before taking full advantage of the school's fabulous junior-year foreign study program.

A year and a half later, having graduated from Kalamazoo College, I attended law school in Santa Barbara, CA. Despite receiving straight "A's" during my first semester, I decided, while standing in line to register for the second, to visit a friend in New York City. I flew out a week later and stayed several years. Crazy, right?

Working at a wine shop on Sutton Place and teaching tennis at Columbia University were fulfilling enough, but eventually the subterranean desolations of the Big Apple bit me and I moved to Woodstock, NY. I continued tilling my usual employment fields until a timely call from my mother finally rang true: "Claus-Stefan! What are you doing with your life?"

I was twenty-six now, and with a relatively firm grasp of my life's purpose, landed at Michigan State University where I began working on my master's degree in film and video production. I established a university-wide organization, Promethean Productions, which employed English students for original scripts, theater majors for actors, film students for production work and art department personnel for set construction and design. The second of these productions was my thesis, an original drama I wrote and directed. It was shot in various locations throughout East Lansing and Saugatuck, and while I thought my half-hour drama was the best production since "Easy Rider," it wasn't nearly good enough, as I soon discovered, for the lights of Hollywood.

I graduated from MSU in 1987, packed up my new Subaru and headed for the Hollywood Hills. Once in Los Angeles, I rented a room in the Hollywood YMCA for $10 a night, found an apartment within a week, and got my first job the next day as a telemarketer.

I remained in Los Angeles from 1988 to 2004, working my way through the film industry and eventually finding satisfaction as an in-house producer for movie titles and digital effects. My first film client was the writer/director of "Sling Blade," Billy Bob Thornton, a great actor and a very funny man.

Among the 150 or so other projects I represented was "Titanic," and James Cameron famously said, "Who is this Claus guy?" I'd finally gotten his attention after having inundated his production company with dozens of personal pleas and yes, back in the day, faxes! This was my company's first major digital effects project and we nailed it!

During my time in Los Angeles I became friends with several Force Recon guys at Camp Pendleton, CA and they trained me in the use of firearms, skills I continued to hone. Trap, skeet, rifle, pistol, shotgun and defensive techniques served me well and were thoroughly enjoyed; the hunting of animals, however, never!

After returning to Kalamazoo in 2004, and with no film industry in town, I attended graduate school at Western Michigan University, obtaining a master's in Industrial Organizational Psychology, then a Graduate Certificate in Substance Use and Abuse. Armed with new skills and knowledge, I found a great job at KPEP: It was as a clinical therapist and group facilitator for probationers and parolees. This was a very rewarding time of my life, as I was able to provide help and guidance to those battling addictions.

As I reflect now, I've been quite lucky in life, having loved and been loved deeply; can one give or receive too much love, is that possible?

I believe memories are singular and an angel is attached to each of them: boating the shimmering waters of Lake Lugano; the child leading me by the hand to her family's table in a Taormina, Sicily restaurant so I wouldn't be relegated to dine alone; playing backstage table tennis with Carlos Santana before his simmering, haunting guitar slashed through the Mecosta night stage during a Michigan concert; and beginning a two week journey with a Sicilian mime troupe outside Taormina's ancient amphitheater and traveling throughout the island. I was in charge of collecting lire in my black Stetson and buying wine and food from the proceeds. Memories, like dreams, can be an endless stream of consciousness: a comma here, a period there, make of them what you will. Precious all.

You might think that with a terminal illness nothing is better than waking up in the morning, "One more day, hooray;" but what if your dreams protect you and the truth is hidden? Then the thought "I am dying" greets you in the morning and you are alone until sleep, your last refuge, arrives again.

So visit me among the headstones of Mountain Home and recall the times we've shared, the memories you have of me, as birds fly high above clouds of pink unicorns and red Ferraris race through the minds of children, namely John Robert and Kaitlyn Marie.

I sorely miss the life I had, a wonderful life on a beautiful planet in a mysterious universe. Interesting, I think, how the least understood particles of life are what is deep inside us, our consciousness, and what is far beyond our imagination, the eternity of the universe.

I've been lucky for the extraordinary support and love received from very dear friends, including Adam and Hardy, the brothers I never had, Gina and Larry, my sister Susanna, Teresa's family, Bobbetta, who texted me almost every day, Stephen in Ann Arbor, Breanna, who carries a child's love in her heart, Peter in San Diego, Darrel and Susan, and Tim and Marti in Baltimore. I thank you all, and know I've lived longer and better because of you!

So go now and share your uniqueness with others, and know that it's alright to grieve a little, or better yet, to grieve a lot, for I am truly gone. Look at the person next to you and smile a rueful smile, knowing that it's alright to let your sadness linger; it's also alright to shed a tear or two, or to let a bucket gush out, if you must. I love you all!

I'll leave you with a poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe:
Above the Mountaintops
Above the mountaintops
all is still.
Among the treetops
you can feel
barely a breath -
birds in the forest, stripped of song.
Just wait: before too long
you too, shall rest."

I am, thankfully, survived by my darling Teresa and by Susanne Globig, Isabel Neff (Frederick), niece Nicole, and nephew Greg. I am preceded in death by my parents, F. Claus and Rose-Marie (nee Kanter).

God bless you, and may the peace and love within you be shared with others, known and unknown. With love from beyond,
Claus

A funeral service will be held Tuesday, August 3 at 11:00am at Langeland Family Funeral Homes Burial & Cremation Services, 3926 S 9th Street, Kalamazoo, MI 49009. A private interment will take place in Mountain Home Cemetery.

Donations in Claus's memory may be made the Kalamazoo Autism Center at https://wmuace.com/kac using the link in the bottom righthand corner.

Please visit Claus's personalized online guestbook at https://www.langelands.com