I am presented today with the rather daunting task of trying to paint a picture of Gordon’s life for you. Earlier this week, someone mentioned to me that Gordon was the photographer in the Keating family, so there are plenty of pictures taken by him, but very few with him in them. I thought that this was a rather ironic metaphor for the task of memorializing Gordon. Despite the few physical images, he has left indelible marks on our hearts and souls.
Let me share two pictures with you that I think illustrate Gordon’s journey through life.
The first picture is of a boy at age five. He is vacationing with his family in the Grand Teton National Park when he is approached by another young boy – a stranger.
“How old are you, kid,” asks the other boy.
“I’m five!” he replies.
“Well, I’m six, so haha!”
This other boy has meant to make our subject feel small. Instead, the boy responds with enthusiasm – “Yeah, and when I’m six, you’ll be seven; and when I’m seven you’ll be eight; and when I’m eight . . .”
And so on. Five-year-old Gordon is unflappable. The older boy walks away, beaten at his own game.
This is a picture of how Gordon would almost always approach life – with a grace and good humor that could transform even the most difficult of situations. A talent I’m sure many of us would envy.
Next to this, let’s hang up another picture of Gordon at this same age. He is exploring a state park in Grafton, Illinois with his family, and learning a little something new with a local geologist. In the course of his exploration, he finds a perfect, fossilized specimen of a Grafton Trilobite – the signature fossil of the park. In this moment, he finds a spark.
“I want to be a geologist!” he tells his father. “What’s the best school for that?”
Sure enough, five-year-old Gordon grows up to be just what he set out to be.
This is a picture of Gordon’s other approach to life – a determination and enthusiasm and passion for every interesting subject he encountered on his journey.
The answer his father gave him about the best school, by the way, was “Harvard.”
Gordon being Gordon, he found himself a better answer when he went to Carleton College in Minnesota – truly, I am told, the best school for geology.
Hold these two pictures in your mind’s eye for a moment. These are images of the Gordon I know – a man who lived life with enthusiasm and passion, with grace and good humor.
Gordon was passionate about his chosen field, and especially about the volcanoes he spent his time studying. He was lucky to find a partner who shared that passion. He was an old fashioned sort of scientist – in love with fieldwork more than the computer modeling that has become prevalent in his avenue of research.
Gordon loved his work and the people he worked with. He made work fun for his colleagues, and at the intersection of his passion and his grace, Gordon became a mentor to his co-workers – an informal leader whom others trusted when the work became complicated.
As passionate as he was about his career, Gordon was not single-minded in his pursuits. For many in this community, Gordon was a musician before he was a geologist. He came from a musical family, and from the age of four on he could be found picking away at some stringed instrument or other, starting with the violin and moving on to mandolin (his grandfather’s instrument) and banjo (his father’s). Classical guitar followed in college – and was the means by which he won Elizabeth’s heart.
And just as he was a mentor to his colleagues at work, he was a mentor to his fellow musicians, working alongside his Roaring Jelly bandmates – even encouraging his own daughters to have an interest, by supporting their explorations in music and dance.
His interest and passion for music led him to even newer hobbies. He’d restored his grandfather’s mandolin years ago, and had come close to completing building his own from scratch. At one point, when the job situation after a post-doc appointment looked cloudy, Gordon even thought about becoming a luthier.
Gordon’s humor and good grace made the Keating household an open and a welcoming one. As one of the in-laws remarked to me this week, “The house is Grand Central.” Friends of Zoe and Flannery are constantly in and out of the house, and Gordon was frequently right there in the middle of them all. “Part of the posse,” says Flannery.
His daughters didn’t even need to be at home. Zoe’s friends, home on break, whether or not Zoe was in town, were always ringing up the house. “Can we hang with Gordon?”
Elizabeth is convinced that he was never fully aware of just how popular he was – with youth or with anyone else in town, for that matter.
Gordon was an affectionate guy, and always had a handshake or a hug for people. He always knew his guests by name.
And he honestly cared about them, especially the young folks. Maybe it was the kid in him that was constantly on display.
He was a mentor to all the youth in his life, too.
A mentor to his daughters, certainly. He took a deep interest in what the girls were studying, doing, where and when they were working.
And he was always ready to lend a hand to whatever project the rest of the posse was working on.
And he was calm and steady presence for the youth of this church as well. Whether taking junior high students on trips to other churches to learn about whole religious life of this community, or sitting with the high school kids as they navigated their way through the rough road of growing into adulthood, Gordon wanted to be there for all “his kids.”
And he did it with that enviable grace and humor. This is my lasting image of Gordon: sitting with our youth group, watching them get a little rowdy in the way only teenagers can. I would see him grow frustrated, but never, ever did he lash out, or speak a harsh or unkind word.
He could dispense discipline in a way that made you feel grateful for the interaction. Always calm, always gracious, always with that good humor.
I’ve always admired that in Gordon. I’ve strived to learn from him in that regard.
I’m a pretty laid-back guy, but sitting in a room with Gordon or around a meeting table, watching him in action, there was always a little voice in my head saying, “John, you really need to settle down.”
He was, then, I suppose, my mentor, too, in a way.
This is of course, not all of who Gordon was – this is not the whole picture. There’s the picture of the avid nature enthusiast, and the environmentalist. There are pictures of the maker of the world’s greatest enchiladas and the inventor of the dance known as the groove shark.
There are all of these pictures and more.
But it’s the pictures of a man of grace and good humor, of enthusiasm and optimism that I want to lift up today.
Because, here’s the thing: those images never faded. Despite everything that’s happened, despite having every good reason to let those particular images of himself fade, Gordon never let them go.
When he was first diagnosed with cancer, and was headed into his first surgery to remove the tumor in his brain he was, of course, terrified. Scared that his personality would be changed in ways he couldn’t control.
But through that fear, he was still able to hang on to the grace and good humor that were hallmarks of his life.
“I hope,” he said, “that I come out at the other end of all this with a better singing voice.”
I have not stopped grinning inside since I heard that.
Hold on to that picture for a while. Hang it up next to the two of Gordon at age five.
That approach to living stayed with him all through this last year.
I want to note, for our youth especially, that his time with the youth group here was one of the most important things on his “to do” list. He told me once that he’d made a list of what was most important to him as his health declined. You all were right near the top, if not the very top. And I know he treasured every Sunday he got to spend with all of you.
As he grew deeper in his Buddhist practice, Gordon came to accept the inevitable with the same grace and humor that he’d always lived with. “Y’know, this would be funny if it didn’t hurt so much,” he’d say.
At the same time, he never gave up hope that something better might happen.
Gracious acceptance and boundless optimism in the face of death. These are not necessarily complementary attitudes, and yet Gordon was able to hold on to both of them.
Still with a hand of welcome and affection out to all who came through the house. Still with your name in the forefront of his memory.
In his grace and good humor, Gordon was still a mentor to us, right until the end – teaching us all how to live life in the moment, that every moment mattered – how to reckon with our own mortality.
“I hope I come out of this with a better singing voice.”
Well, you certainly sang, Gordon. We are grateful for the song, and for this beautiful picture of life you’ve shared with us.
In the time that remains, I invite you all to share something of the images of Gordon that you carry with you.