Dave Cook a ‘great soul,’ supportive husband, dad

Dave Cook climbed a mountain as life’s floodwaters rose at his feet.

He conquered alcohol addiction, tackled career changes and had a zest for new adventures while enduring a seven-year battle with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

During repeated rounds of chemotherapy and a stem cell transplant, he lived his philosophy of bolstering others, including new friends facing life-threatening illnesses. In his last few months, the longtime Spokane Valley resident wrote a book to let others know what to expect from stem cell transplants.

Bob Cole, who met Cook when the two attended Bowdish Junior High School, said his friend was “an advanced being” who brought out the best in people of all backgrounds.

“He really was this kind of quiet mahatma great soul. He loved unconditionally,” Cole said.

Although he was only 46 when he died on June 28, Cook squeezed 10 lifetimes of love into his short life.

Dave Cook was born to James and Kay Cook. Raised with three siblings in Spokane Valley, he graduated from University High School in 1976.

After graduating, he married and became a dad to Shawna and Jessie, before divorcing and sharing custody with his ex-wife.

Jessie Cook, 15, said her dad was a constant fixture on the sidelines – offering cheers as she played club soccer and games for Central Valley High School. “He only missed, like, five of my sporting events. He really supported me.”

The girls said their dad dropped everything to play a board game, gin rummy or chess and to spend hours talking about things that interested them.

Shawna Cook, 17, remembers long, meaningful talks with her father, who helped her see a larger meaning to life. “I learned so much from him. He was kind of like my mentor and guardian,” she said.

Tammy Cook, Dave’s wife of 10 years, met her future husband while the two were undergoing treatment for alcohol addiction. Tammy also had two children, Sara Deems and Brandon Koerner. Tammy and Dave both were looking to improve their lives.

Over the course of the yearlong program, they grew closer. When counseling wrapped up, they fell in love.

“As a wife I was totally fulfilled. He just knew what to say and when and how to say it,” Cook said.

They married and their four children blended into a family. For the new family of six, harmony was singing Christmas songs, recording them on tapes or CDs and packaging them with family photos to send as holiday greetings.

“Just You and I” became Tammy and Dave’s special song. The two formed a country duo, Just Us, and put on paid performances at weddings and receptions.

As a kid, Dave was a gifted pianist who won a Starlit Stairway contest. “Starlit Stairway” was a local, televised talent show that ran from the 1950s through the 1970s.

As an adult, Dave Cook’s musical persona evolved. Ever the romantic, he taught himself guitar so he could play background as he sang and recorded love songs written for his wife.

“He actually played all the instruments in those songs. He’d never say he was a piano player – but he was a piano player,” Tammy Cook said.

As much as he loved trying new things, he got a thrill out of treating others to new experiences. When Tammy mentioned wanting to learn tole painting, her husband didn’t just give her a box of brushes, he built her an entire studio.

“He signed me up for classes, mailed in the check, bought me paints and brushes and said, ‘You’re going to learn how to tole paint,’ ” she recalled.

While trying to lose weight, Cook came home to find her spouse had prepared nice dinners and counted points for her Weight Watchers’ program.

Dave was one of many Kaiser Aluminum Corp. employees who found themselves locked out during the strikes, about seven years ago. After 22 years of putting sheet metal through a press at the Trentwood plant, Cook viewed the strike as an opportunity to start over.

After taking college aptitude tests, which showed he’d be suited for nuclear medicine, Cook enrolled in classes at Spokane Community College. He was getting straight As when the cancer was diagnosed. Fortunately, Tammy Cook said, Kaiser allowed him to retire on a medical disability.

While undergoing chemotherapy, Cook became a phlebotomist, drawing blood for patients at Valley Hospital and Medical Center. At 6-foot-4, he was known to staff and patients as Gentle Giant, his wife said.

The couple moved to California in hopes of getting Dave into an experimental treatment. There, he became an operations analyst for Allegro Networks. He worked and went for treatment during the day and took classes to further his career at night.

“He was just an extraordinary human being. He had this personality that was just out of this world. He could get along with anyone, and do anything he set his mind to,” said Don Sale, Tammy Cook’s father.

During seven years of cancer, he had three-month long remissions and never missed a day of work during treatments, Tammy Cook recalled.

“He never lost his sense of humor. He took the cancer and the surgeries and kept everyone else up,” she said.

Shawna and Jessie remembered laughing at their dad who once shoveled snow from the driveway wearing “tighty whitey” underwear on his head. When he was finished shoveling, he staked the underwear to posts to mark the driveway.

When Tammy told her husband she had problems gauging how far to pull into the garage, Dave hung a blond-haired doll in a swimsuit and slippers upside down from the garage ceiling and said, “When her head butts up against the windshield, that’s as far as you go, Honey.”

Cole said one of the last outings he had with his friend was at Painted Hills Golf Course. Cook was too sick to play, but wanted to drive the cart and support his buddy.

Perhaps it was a reflection of Dave Cook’s positive energy, but on the ninth hole Cole got an eagle – two strokes under par. With his friend cheering, the two experienced golfer’s heaven.

“That was the last golf we played together,” Cole said, adding, “I hadn’t had an eagle in 25 years.”