Dr. Templeton was a special person and big supporter of everything in my life. We met at CHOP when I was about 17 years old when Dr. Koop, my former surgeon was leaving CHOP to become surgeon general of the United States. Since he was retiring from surgery and I needed yet another, he introduced me to Dr. T. Another amazing man enters my life and a couple of surgeries later he becomes a good friend and another pen pal just like Dr. Koop with me until his death. Dr. Templeton and I kept in touch and he supported every fundraising event I had as many years back as I can remember, always sending me a beautiful letter of support and a big fat check. “What doctor does that?” I can honestly say, not too many. As time went on, our letters became personal, him sharing his daughters life and granddaughters and me sharing the birth of my son and his very, very healthy childhood. Pictures were exchanged and then we switched to emails. Eventually over time his assistants took over when he was too busy to keep in touch and contact was minimal but still keeping in touch. Little did I know, that he became ill and the last two years of his life had brain cancer and had passed this spring 2016.
What brings me to this moment is that he was on my mind lately and I felt bad not writing to him directly. After I got out of the hospital recently, I decided to write only to have my email bounce back. Puzzled, I sent a quick note to his assistant which also came back to me??? Luckily, I had emails to a few others in the office and sent them notes of concern and asked if I should switch back to snail mail since Dr. T was getting older and it might be easier for him. That is when she shared with me of his passing. I was devastated to find this out since he never shared of his illness, whether it was intentional or he just was too ill to write. The girl in the office felt terrible I did not know either of his illness or that he passed. She assumed I had known. I then sat down and sent his wife a note and expressed my sadness over such an important person to me and not knowing of his passing. Maybe he did not want to burden me with his illness or maybe he could not. Either way, I will miss his presence, even if it was minimal and I wanted him to know how important he was to me both medically and personally. I am happy that you are not suffering anymore and someday our paths will cross again my friend. RIP Dr. T. 
