Obituary – Forever in Our Hearts
It is with heavy hearts that the wife and family of Jeff Sulik announce his passing.
Jeff Stefan Sulik, wonderful husband, son and uncle, died peacefully in the Tom Baker Cancer Centre on Apr 8, 2023 after a many years long battle with the nefarious villain named Cancer. His spirit was released from his worn-out shell and is now out exploring the universe.
Many moons ago, in 1975, Jeff was born and immediately dubbed “our favorite child” to Helen and Ken Sulik in Dauphin, Manitoba. In his childhood, Jeff was an adorable, blonde-haired and well-mannered child. He adored animals and often told stories of how cats would follow him home from the park.
Just five years later when another baby boy was born, Jeff became known as the older brother to the infamous Chad the younger, and the world was changed forever. Jeff loved singing and often would do so when walking to school. One day he realized that a young girl had been following behind him and when confronted she admitted to having enjoyed listening to him sing for weeks as they paraded themselves down the street to Brooks Jr High.
He loved English class and later went on to Medicine Hat College to pursue a career in journalism. This did not pan out for him and after working odd jobs making great pizza and doing accounting for a local motel, he eventually landed in Calgary at Enmax where he would eventually meet his future wife. He was shy when they first met, but later he got up the courage to go over to her work desk and entertain her with odd wildlife facts regarding elephants. They later adopted a small pachyderm named Peanut and took him on crazy adventures and wild places as remote as Banff and Victoria.
Lo and behold, Rita enjoyed his quiet strong nature and quirky sense of humour and decided they needed to hitch their wagons together and have been inseparable ever since.
Family and friends will remember his warm smile, kind nature, quick wit and his collection of passions and pursuits.
Jeff was a pop-culture encyclopedia who loved Batman, Star Wars, Dr Who and any Marvel or DC comic book he could get his hands on. If it was related to these topics chances are Jeff had already watched it, read it, researched it or saved it to his computer to look at later.
His fondness of fantasy/science fiction was only surpassed by the love of chocolate, formula 1, baseball, movie trailers and debating any topic of your choice. He loved literature and was highly intelligent. No topic was too obscure for him to be interested in and he often referred to himself as a “fountain of useless information”.
He was generous to a fault, a big teddy bear at heart, and yet he sugar-coated absolutely nothing. To quote Winston Churchill: “He was a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.”
His only regret was that he robbed his beloved Rita of several decades of growing old together and laughing at all the thousands of simple things that they had come to enjoy. She will miss the puns they bantered back and forth, the happy words, the heated debates and silly moments that bonded them and made their marriage so resilient.
There is so much more that should be said, but in the end, what he did was to teach us all not to judge a book by it’s cover and made our world brighter and more loving.
He is survived by his wife, Rita Tobak, parents Helen and Kenneth Sulik, his brother Chad and wife Chantel, their children Madison, Seth and Abigail, his brother-in-law Lou and our nieces, Jayleen, Rachel, Katlyn and nephews Lucas and Sebastian. He will be greatly missed and fondly remembered by many aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, and friends.
A celebration of life will be held for him on Saturday, April 15, 2023 at 10:30 am at Leyden’s Chapel of Remembrance (corner of 17th Avenue & 2ndStreet SW) Jeff’s father Ken Sulik will be officiating the service. A reception will follow and final interment will start at approximately 1:30 pm at Eden Brook Memorial Gardens.
Everyone who remembers him is asked to remember Jeff’s life in their own way. Watching Casablanca, The Dark Knight or Star Wars: A New Hope in his memory would be quite appropriate.
Instead of flowers, Jeff would ask that a donation be made to the Cancer charity of your choice or hope that you will do an unexpected act of kindness for some less fortunate soul.
