Facts & Arguments
LIVES LIVED
David Samuel Bloom
Richard Bloom

05/30/2001
The Globe and Mail
Metro
A20
"All material Copyright (c) Bell Globemedia Publishing Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved."

Actor, singer, dancer, scholar. Born Jan. 28, 1982, in Brampton, Ont. Died April 24 in Brampton, of a brain tumour, aged 19.

If there was anyone in this world to ever have true zeal and a zest for life it was my little brother David.

From a very young age, Dave was a performer. He loved the spotlight and craved the spotlight. Not in that obnoxious way some people can have when wanting to take centre stage: he had God-given talent and loved to show that off. When he did, he left everyone speechless.

He had something I'd never seen or heard of anyone having, something that cannot adequately be described by words. He had this power to move people: To make them laugh, to make them smile, to make them forget about their own troubles in their own lives, to bring them to tears.

He sang at synagogue from the moment he could. After his bar mitzvah, he learned every song at shul -- belting out the solos, time after time. On Yom Kippur, he would sing Kol Nidrei and absolute shivers would run up and down everyone's spine. Nobody dared to move. Nobody wanted to move. Once again, that indescribable feeling captured everyone in the room as though nothing else mattered. And nothing else did when he sang.

In 1998, at the age of only 16, he was hired on at Paramount Canada's Wonderland, to perform in a kids show called Animables Down Under.

The next summer, he was offered a chance to head to Prince Edward Island and perform in the Charlottetown Festival, a gig that some people only dream of achieving in a lifetime, let alone at the age of 17. But Dave was part of the 30 or so young people chosen from across Canada to be in the performance of Somewhere in the World.

While he was away, he won his most coveted role yet. After playing smaller roles, bit roles, in shows at Mayfield Secondary School, he auditioned -- by tape, sent by mail -- for his school's production of Carousel. He got the lead role, on his reputation as a performer and his wonderful singing voice.

About a month or so after returning from PEI, he was diagnosed by the doctors with a brain tumour; it was later determined that the tumour was cancerous.

But that didn't sideswipe his will or his determination. He went on to perform the role in Carousel for a string of nighttime performances, while undergoing intense radiation therapy during the days. Every night a standing ovation, every night another mind-blowing performance as Billy Bigelow.

This past November -- after radiation therapy, the addition of chemotherapy, the pressures of school and endless sleepless nights caused by migraine headaches -- he went on to do yet another production. Courageously, he acted in a community theatre production of My Fair Lady.

He was sick, terminally sick, but he never showed signs of defeat. He was losing his memory, losing his vision and was too tired many days to even stand, let along sing, dance and act. But that he did.

He sang at synagogue on Saturdays, volunteered at Hebrew school on Sundays, worked with kids during the summer, helped friends with their school work, with their plays and with their lives: always wanting to make people smile, always wanting to go out and have a good time.

He was also a scholar, always getting straight A's. Nothing else. He was "the best" -- a nickname he received at a young age -- and will continue to live on in the hearts of all those he knew, as the best.

In January, on Dave's 19th birthday, we threw him a mammoth surprise party. It was there that Dave performed what would be his last song in front of a microphone. My Way, made famous by Frank Sinatra. How true its lyrics are: To think I did all that. And may I say, not in a shy way: No, oh no not me, I did it my way.

Richard Bloom is David's older brother and markets reporter with globeandmail.com.