Jordan Grafman

Learning about Don’s passing caused me to reminisce about our common interests and times together.  I always admired Don’s creating the Rotman Research Institute’s blend of experimental and clinical neuropsychological approaches to addressing issues of importance to cognitive neuroscientists.  I had the opportunity to visit him there several times and always enjoyed his company and listening to his thoughtful approaches to trying to understand the functions of the human frontal lobes.  Although I didn’t know the details of how he constructed and implemented his vision for the interaction between clinical care and research at the Rotman, I imagined that it required a fair amount of hard work, ingenuity, and certainly a bit of magical persuasion.  Don and I occasionally went out to dinner at meetings we both attended and enjoyed sampling different kinds of foods and live music and one of those dinners afforded me first-hand evidence of Don’s persuasiveness.  We were in Vancouver at a meeting and we decided, along with Bonnie Levin from the University of Miami, to eat at a very nice French Restaurant that had booths in corners allowing for a quiet, private and intimate evening.  They seated us in the middle of the restaurant and we began conversing about all kinds of topics.  Eventually we had a lively discussion about Don’s leaning towards a Jesuit life when he was younger.  I asked him about wearing a robe with a hood and he acknowledged that he had and then demonstrated what he had looked like by putting a cloth napkin on his head and looking quite serious.  I became lost in that spiritual moment and donned a cloth napkin myself.  We continued the conversation for a short period of time and suddenly we noticed quite strangely that almost everyone in this small restaurant had put a cloth napkin on their heads and were looking at us as if they were waiting for the next move.  Well, Don had the next move in mind and rose up from his chair and I did the same and then we proceeded to walk around the restaurant blessing people and eventually marrying one couple sitting in one of the booths.  We then returned to the table.  Neither the waiters nor the owner seemed disturbed by what must have appeared as an unusual activity in their restaurant.  The fact that Don was able to make strangers feel comfortable doing something a little out of the ordinary and having fun at the same time helped me better understand what can only be considered a rare ability to be persuasive and comforting at the same time.  I am grateful to have known Don and I hope my memories of him continue to remind me of the importance of dedication, having an intellectually demanding and thoughtful vision, of spontaneity, and of being kind.  Although I wasn’t able to say goodbye to Don before he passed, our experiences together never left my memory and he remains there today.  I am grateful to have known him