Brion Raymond Leri, 64, passed away on March 17, 2021 at Woodside Healthcare Center in Sacramento, CA after a six-year battle with cancer.
Brion was born at Alta Bates Community Hospital in Berkeley, CA on March 11, 1957. He is survived by his two children, Christa Leri and Michael Leri and his sister, Diane Leri. His death was preceded by his father, Raymond Leri; his mother, Darlene (Hood) Leri and his wife of 37 years, Sheri Leri, who passed away in December of 2020. Even though it was ultimately an unwinnable war, Brion beat the odds in many respects with his cancer diagnosis. He was too stubborn to succumb to the destructive disease in the grim time frame the doctors originally gave him.
His cancer was one of the few things he could not fix. Brion was proficient with every sort of tool available, often knowing exactly how, when, where, and why each utensil should be applied to get the job done. Brion also seemed to leave a lasting impact on many of those that he worked with throughout the years. He was always happy to share his knowledge with others.
His perfectionism and knowledge ensured that he finished almost every project he started as professionally as possible from building a dresser for his daughter to installing a new air conditioner for a client. After graduating Livermore High School and Chabot College, he spent 25 years at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory further honing his natural abilities as a jack-of-all-trades. Once Brion retired from the lab, he spent about 10 years working at the Stockton Arena as their Facility Operations Manager. His job required him to also oversee the operations of the arena’s other three facilities; Oak Park Ice Rink, the Bob Hope Theatre, and the Stockton Ports baseball stadium; which eventually lead to part time employment for both of his children. He not only continued to work hard to display his proficient skills, but he was also quite the prankster with many of his friends that he met while working there. No one ever seemed to know what he would say or do next to get a laugh from someone. Brion would sometimes even try to re-live his younger days of being an athlete with the Stockton Arena’s hockey team, the Stockton Thunder, by joining part of the player’s pre-game warmup routine. He would run alongside them up and down the hallway of the arena. He loved sharing stories of his many interesting experiences that he had during his tenure.
His sports expertise was the only thing that surpassed his technical expertise. Brion could list every quarterback the 49ers ever had, where they went to school, and probably the flavor of Gatorade they dumped on the coach in the 1989 Super Bowl. This type of extensive wisdom applied to almost every sport with a puck or ball but was particularly sharp for the teams around the Bay Area like the Giants, Sharks, and Warriors. He enjoyed attending many of their games throughout the years with his family. Brion got to cheer for each one of those teams as they won a championship except the Sharks, but as he often joked about, it’s not likely anyone will ever live long enough to see that.
Brion’s love of sports was a byproduct of his other love: the outdoors. Growing up, he liked to spend time with his family in Fort Bragg fishing or working with his uncle. While he was born in the Bay Area, he often liked to fondly reminiscence about his many summers there in that foggy, coastal town to the north. He longed to return, but cancer callously took away his ability to go on such a journey.
Cancer robs a lot of people of their simple pleasures as it ravages through its targets and Brion, in the eyes of the cancer, was just its latest victim. This awful disease unfortunately caused him to have an unimaginable amount of emotional pain that he struggled to work through in his final years. But despite the unfairness of the situation, he still tried to provide for his family while putting up a grand fight, proving his qualities as a father even in the toughest of times.
To send flowers
to the family or plant a tree
in memory of Brion Raymond Leri, please visit our floral store.