Bogdan Gorski Obituary

Bogdan Gorski
November 16th 1952 - March 1st 2022

Our beloved Bogdan (Bodzio to his wife and life partner Anna, and dear old Dad to his girls) passed away peacefully in his sleep at home on Tuesday March 1st, at the age of 69 years.

Bogdan was born in Kraków, Poland on November 16th, 1952, where he met his best friend and co-conspirator, Andzrej Kellar AKA Hey Kolega!o—a friendship that would span more than 60 years. Growing up with his sweet, younger sister, Małgorzata (or Gosia, as he lovingly called her), he began swimming competitively in his early childhood. Bogdan was the kind of dude who could convince a naïve high school teacher to let him grow his hair long “to be more hydrodynamic”, though this was strictly against the conservative school policy. That poor teacher was laughed out of the teachers’ lounge. Bogdan had a way of making things lighthearted, but with a wry wit that was rightly his own.

He met the love of his life, Anna on holidays in Kretowiny, Poland, where they danced their first dance to I Wanna Hold Your Hand. They fell in love quickly, and he was a hopeless romantic from the start, albeit a bit of a party animal. After getting drunk at his bachelor party, he scaled her balcony like some crazed Romeo. He ended up falling and smashing his ankle. Anna’s auntie found him and fixed him up, keeping him hidden from his bride-to-be until the wedding. They married in 1976, had their first born unicorn Katarzyna in 1978, and immigrated to Canada September 1981, after living in a refugee camp in Austria for 14 months. They packed up Anna’s fur coat (a suspicious choice for summer to the border guards), Bogdan’s vinyls, and Kasia’s imaginary sibling Grubas (Fatso) and imaginary best friend Krecik (Mole). They made a leap to life in Calgary, where their daughters, Magdalena (the pretty one) and Marta (usually referred to as “Dad’s only son") were born.

Bogdan graduated as a Master of Chemical & Ceramic Engineering in 1976 from AGH University of Science and Technology in Kraków. Prior to leaving Poland as a political refugee with Anna and Kasia, he had started work on his doctoral studies, which subsequent life precluded him from completing. Once the family settled in Calgary, Bogdan landed a dream job in the oil and gas sector, at Nova Chemicals, as a Senior Systems Analyst. He was beloved for many years by his colleagues and employers, but there came the day when he was ready to start his own business. So the Software Clinic Corp., was born, and thus began a legacy of interesting contracts, some large, some small. The most significant of which was his participation in Nike’s Y2K project in Portland, OR, where he contributed to a successful changeover from a two digit to four digit dating system at the turn of the millennium. If you weren’t alive then, or you were very small, you would not know what glorious frenzy this seemingly simple task stirred up the world over. And there was Bogdan, coding night and day, getting paid in designer sneakers, commuting internationally like the legend he was.

In their new country, the Gorskis quickly made an adopted family of other Canadian Polacks. Their parties (imprezy) were legendary. Sometimes his kids would listen with their ears pressed to the bedroom floor as everyone danced ’til the wee hours. When the girls were older, having a party usually meant your parents were out of town. For the Gorskis, people would check before they agreed to come: “Bogdan’s gonna be there though, right?”

The Extraordinary and Never Boring Practice of the Un-Orthodox seemed to be the unspoken temple of Bogdan; who else do you know that wrote the answers to his passwords as a series of square roots and algebra in his notes, not to be unlocked unless you met his level of genius? Who else would invent "Hula Gula", an entire island of the absurd for his children’s entertainment, complete with a secret language for only them to share? Who else converted the entire backyard into a skating rink every winter for the family, only to show off his hockeystop skills, spraying his children in the face with snow? Who else would do so wearing skin-tight jeans, a too-short jacket, and a toque barely hanging onto his head?

Rumour has it that he told the original dad joke, and it was so good—as were all the ones that would follow—that dads all over the globe aspire to his talent, but will never come close. Something as simple as a restaurant napkin became the prop to one of his classic antics, embarrassing to his children well into their adulthood.

Bogdan loved to collect music. Never mind bedtime stories, he played guitar to his daughters every night to lull them asleep; songs chosen from a 3000+ deep cuts vinyl collection—everything from Adam And The Ants to ZZ Top. And he would write you a letter with 40 Beatles song title clues hidden within for you to find (e.g., “Oh Darling! Have you seen Martha, my dear?”)

Throughout his life, the Beatles remained his favourite, but his tastes changed and grew to include intricate rarities, like his beloved prog rock. He would regularly express his disdain for Bowie's disco era, or at local rock stations for failing to play King Crimson. He taught his daughters to love music as much as he did, introducing them with a long drive to Edmonton for the epic Pink Floyd concert in 1994. Do the math at how little the three of them were that year.

Since then, many fond memories were made discussing this musical great or that, listening to and watching concert videos, and sharing more recent artists with him that he might enjoy. Hopefully, he finally forgave Kasia for her fanship of Tiffany and New Kids On The Block in her early teens. And though their tastes may have differed in some ways from his, his daughters always saw him as the aficionado of the best music ever made.

He was a gentle, kind-hearted man, the sort of person who’d rarely muster an insult worse than “that guy can’t even play cards very well.” He always gave great advice, the best of which was that you “shouldn’t drink warm vodka or date sweaty women”. And he loved dogs, probably even more than he liked most people. He had several dogs throughout his life, the most special of which were Kuba (a gorgeous brindle purebred boxer), and Jagger (the biggest meatball of a boxer-pit bull-mastiff shitmix).

Bogdan was basically the six-million-dollar man, having survived more attempts on his life than James Bond. He troopered on through appendicitis, an aneurysm, 4 heart attacks, myeloma, hernias, diabetes, and lived with kidney disease for over 10 years. He took pride in dialysing at home, an act which gave him agency over his health.

His eventual retirement was a direct consequence of his illness, but he quickly shifted gears to the dedicated house husband, staying up late to prepare breakfast and lunch for Anna, and welcoming her home from work each day with a delicious dinner. He fell ever-more in love with her through these last years, claiming she looked even more beautiful than she had when he married her. He would say “Momma doesn’t just look better every day, she looks better than the day after tomorrow”.

When he wasn’t working in Anna’s kitchen, Bogdan’s full time job was his health. The wonderful nurses and doctors who cared for him were his co–workers, but Anna was The Boss. They worked together to keep him going, and there is no doubt that Anna’s unyielding attention, care, and wisecracks added years to his life. And then there was his will to live, and Bogdan most certainly had the Guinness world record in willpower.

Though he was beloved at the various hospital appointments, well-known at the pharmacy, and a favourite patient of all of his doctors and nurses, he absolutely hated being there; he absolutely hated being sick. After enduring it all, he passed away in his sleep, at home, at peace.

The impact that our gentle giant had on everyone who met him was undeniable. He was so good, and he was so pure. Everyone loved him, because there was something very sincere about the approach he took to living. Be more like Bogdan. What a cool guy.

A Memorial Service will be held at Foster’s Garden Chapel 3220 – 4 Street NW, Calgary on Saturday March 12th at 2 pm, with interment to follow at Queen’s Park Cemetery.

If friends & family so desire, memorial donation can be made to:

Pawsitive Match Rescue Foundation
https://atbcares.benevity.org

Kidney Foundation
https://kidney.akaraisin.com

Expressions of sympathy may be forwarded to the family via the website http://www.fostersgardenchapel.ca