Person:Leslie Austin (5)

L. Scot Austin Obituary (known as Scot Austin) Longtime Cupertino resident and polio vaccination advocate L. Scot Austin passed away Wednesday, Oct. 5, 2022. During his 45-year residence in Cupertino, Scot was a regular participant and attendee in countless civic and community meetings and causes. Scot was born in Illinois, on Christmas Eve, 1940. At the age of 15, he contracted Polio. In his senior year of high school, the Navy approached him about an engineering scholarship. In 1969 he moved to California, a warmer climate more conducive to his condition. Scot worked for over 20 years at Hewlett Packard. He married, bought a house, and had two lovely twin daughters. Memorial Mass Nov.5th at 11:00am at St. Joseph‘s Cupertino with a reception to follow at Cupertino Inn at 2pm. Scot is survived by his wife Donna Mae Austin, his daughters Kristen Austin Cortez, Nicole Austin Dalesio, and four grandchildren Gabriel Scot Sandoval, Ava Rose Sandoval, Juliana Marie Dalesio, and Victor Thomas Dalesio. In place of flowers, the family has asked that people donate those causes that were important to Scot: The Cupertino Rotary Endowment Fund: https://bit.ly/CupertinoRotaryEndowmentFund, The Cupertino Historical Society and Museum: https://bit.ly/CupertinoHistSocDonation, The League of Women Voters of Cupertino-Sunnyvale: https://bit.ly/LWVofCupertinoSunnyvaleDonation

Published by Mercury News on Oct. 6, 2022.

Eulogy for Dad, a Legacy of Love, written for Scot Austin and delivered at the memorial by Kristen Austin Cortez 10/5/2022

Have you heard the story of when my Grandpa Austin knocked on a farmer’s door and asked the man if he could paint his old, dilapidated barn? My guess is that you have. And since I am an Austin, I am going to tell you the story again anyway because that is what Austins do. So the story is that the farmer, not knowing of course, Grandpa was a famous watercolor artist who wanted to paint a picture of the barn, declined immediately, explaining that the barn was no longer usable and that they had plans to tear it down that spring. Like Grandpa and everyone in our family, my dad also liked to tell and repeat stories. Like Grandpa and everyone in our family, he was also not one to let good things go to waste. He could see the beauty and value in things that others might have torn down, thrown away, or let go. He cherished and made the most of what he had. He had us. He used to say to my sister and I, “I’m going to charge you a nickel for everytime I find the lights left on!” I also remember that above that very hall light switch we forgot to turn off, there was a poster that remained there for years. On it, a quote that captured one of the many beliefs he instilled in us, “A winner never quits and a quitter never wins.” He taught me to cherish the gifts God had given me, not to waste or throw away what I had. You probably all know that he got polio at the age of 15. Even though he spent many of his years on crutches or in a wheelchair and, at 6ft.5, could never play basketball, or run, that man loved sports. Since we worshipped our father and wanted him to be proud of us, we loved sports as well. And since God blessed my sister and I with able bodies, we participated in every competitive sport available to girls at that time and then some. It didn’t matter that we were girls. He did, afterall, grow up with four sisters and a strong mother. He learned. My father was a feminist before it was en vogue for a man to be one. And my father made the most of his two girls. He coached us and watched us, drove us to games and meets, sacrificed his time, and loved every minute of it. It was his dream. We were his dream. With his encouragement, we did competitive swimming, soccer, tennis, track, basketball, softball, skating, long-distance running, triathlons, biking, scuba diving, rowing, weight lifting, snowboarding and water polo. He loved and supported my mother and my sister and I in everything we did, even the things he couldn’t do himself, even from the sidelines. He supported us in our academic and career endeavors, read books to us, moved me into my dorm at UCLA, attended our graduations, prepped me for job interviews in Silicon Valley, gave me some valuable investment advice, and invested everything he had of himself in us. He was the light that never went off, the light that kept us going, even when we made mistakes (and I made many). And I didn’t always listen. I didn’t always appreciate my gifts. But he was that light when I wasted mine, when I failed, when I didn’t win, when I quit, and when I got up to try again. Once, when my sister and I didn’t want to go to one of our many Saturday, 6:30am swim practices, we cried later to my mom that we wanted to quit! Dad was making us get up early to swim. It was then she taught me a new word. “Vicarious.” She reminded me that we shouldn’t waste the ability to do what he was never able to do. She told us Dad was living vicariously through us and that it gave him immense joy to watch us thrive, that he also got up before 6:30am on Saturdays just to take us, (she sure heck wasn’t going to), but he did that simply for the love of watching us do what he couldn’t; Sports were his dream. We were his dream. Our father never quit trying. He was brilliant, a skilled engineer, an architect, an environmentalist, a reader, a storyteller, genealogist, an artist, a musician, a cook and bread baker, a codebreaker, a coach, a pioneer, a father, a husband, a big brother, an uncle, a cousin, a grandfather, a fraternity brother, and a friend, roles which he assumed with nothing but love. He read voraciously, played Taps on his trumpet in a way that made girls swoon, had a photographic memory, a genius IQ. He could do the rubik's cube in 18 seconds flat and could answer every Trivial Pursuit question in every version of the game ever published. He knew every one of our swim times for every event, every sports stat, for every sport and for any year. He could explain how vectors worked. He designed houses and clean rooms, built close friendships, and grew a family. And he never stopped trying, even when it was hard. And when he couldn’t do some of the things he wished he could, he left it up to the ones he loved to do it for him. He did not quit. He never quit quitting the things that he had to quit either. And he never quit loving us. His love was like the sourdough starter he left on the kitchen counter one time, that busted out of its container and grew and grew, out of control. There was so much, he had to start giving it to everyone who would take it, something that could be passed on, a recipe, a story that could be tasted and repeated for generations to come. And the Austin family never quit loving each other. Because love-that’s what Austins do. He had trouble communicating at the end, but there were three clear things he managed to say in the days before he passed. The first was, “Your mother is acting like a crazy woman out there!” She was raising a ruckus because she worried the nursing staff wasn’t taking care of him properly and she does that when she thinks anyone she loves has been mistreated. I said to him, “She can be a pain in the neck sometimes! But YOU ARE the one who married her!” And he said promptly, “It’s a good thing for you I did!” He never quit loving her, no matter what. He never quit loving any one of us here. The 2nd thing he said to me was, “Thank you for listening” and the last discernable and most important thing he said to me in the days before he passed was, “I love you too.” I still remember the time Grandpa took us sledding in Wisconsin when Nicole and I were seven. Grandpa brought two sleds that chilly morning. (I assumed they were just for Nicole and I) He put Nicole on his back and laid on the sled, heads first, belly side down. My dad did the same with me on the second sled and we readied ourselves at the top of an enormous hill, teetering on the edge. I had never, ever seen my father do any such thing before. Snow was new to me, but so was this! I was seven, but I was skeptical, yet I was thrilled that Grandpa had challenged my father to have a little fun. Together, we held our breath and counted and then bombed down that hill, the icy wind whipping through our hair and stinging our cheeks as we raced Grandpa and Nicole all the way down. Near the bottom, but not quite, our sled suddenly came to a screeching halt, even though we didn’t stop. My father and I kept going, flying forward at lightning speed, leaving the sled, along with all the buttons of my father’s new coat (given to him by Aunt G), several feet behind us. In the long and deafening silence that followed, I remember feeling terrified my father was hurt… until… he started laughing. All of us laughed until we cried. I do believe my father was hurt, but he never let on and I was impressed that we went right back up the hill and did it again and again and again until our toes and fingers were numb and every limb was banged up and sore. My dad would not quit. In the 100 years of being a father (we are twins, so that’s 50 yearsX2) and the 52 years he was married to my mother and the 82 years he knew each of you, he never quit loving us. It hurts so bad to lose him. I’m going to miss my father. I would be rich if he gave me a nickel for every time I think of him. His love is the light inside us, the one I will always leave on. I can still feel him, in the texture of the buttons that keep us together, even when we come apart. Only days after my dad passed, I watched an episode of 1883 about pioneers going west. In it, the opening scene struck me like no other. The grandfather-figure character Shea, who has recently lost his wife, tells young Elsa that he knows how she feels when she is mourning the death of her man. Shea offers the reason he still goes on. As a pioneer traveling across the west, he tells her that he is headed to the ocean. He says,...”When you love someone you trade souls with them. They get a piece of yours, and you get a piece of theirs. But when the person you love dies, a little piece of them dies with you. That’s why it hurts so bad. But that little piece of him is still inside you. And he can use your eyes to see the world. And then Shea tells Elsa, “So I’m gonna take my wife to the ocean. And I’m gonna sit on the beach and let her see it. That was her dream. Then I’m gonna see her. That’s my dream.” My father’s dream was to see us. So Dad, and I know you are listening, we know the rest is up to us. We will use your eyes to see the world. When the Austin/Cortez/Sandoval/Dalesio teams compete in the annual Santa Cruz triathlon next year, Nicole and I are going to get into the ocean and swim. And I know you will be there. And the pieces of you will be in the things we do over and over, in every stroke we swim, in every bead of the rosary Mom prays, in every storm Gabriel chases, in every tree Juliana plants, in every song Ava sings, and with every ocean wave Victor surfs. And we will carry you on, like a story that gets repeated again and again and we will continue to live out your dreams. You left us a legacy of love. We love you, Dad.