The Memorial Service for Jason Gould

June 26, 2020

Hanson-Runsvold Funeral Home

I really want to keep this very informal.

Jason would want this to be very simple.

And I don’t think he’d be too happy to know we’re all talking about him.

But, it’s good to talk about him, to share memories of him, to remember the good things, and try to forget the bad things.

I say that, but forgetting the bad things is hard to do.

But, what I realized is that I can’t blame him really for the bad things any more than I can blame myself.

For Jason, he had a tough life, from the very beginning.

When he was born in September of 1959, he was born into a bad time in his family.

His grandmother Laverne was dying of Leukemia.

She was able to see him shortly after he was born on September before she died on Sept. 23, 1959.

The other issue going on was that, according Mom anyway, the marriage between her and Roger was pretty much over by that time.

They were both unhappy.

Mom talked about how there was a kind of pall over Jason’s pregnancy.

And she said she didn’t even set up his nursery until just few weeks before he was born.

Of course, as we know, he was born with scarring on his brain.

Mom had no idea how that happened.

This was the time of Thalidomide babies, but she always said she didn’t take any type of drugs during that time except for vitamins.

In 1961 and again in 1962, he almost died.

Michelle remembers the seizures.

He was hospitalized for long periods of time.

It was a terrible time.

Then, Dr. Lee Kristoferson was able to figure out what the issue was and prescribed a very powerful anti-seizure medication.

As much of a miracle as the medication was, it also wreaked havoc on Jason.

And for the rest of his life he struggled.

His parents’ divorce was particularly hard on him, especially being the youngest.

Michelle and I talked the other day about how he would sit at the picture window in our old house waiting for his father to come home from work.

I also remember Mom talked about how the medication made him hyper.

So she would hand him pots and pans and a wooden spoon and he would drum to the music on the radio.

She especially how he became really good at drumming along to “Love Me Do” by the Beatles.

When Mom married Dad, Jason has a hard time with it I know.

And when I came along—man, that was not good.

Or 10 years Jason had been the baby. Of the family.

And now suddenly there was me.

I don’t think he ever got over that.

His teenage years were really rough.

He dropped out of high school.

He went into the Job Corps.

I remember when he boarded the plane for South Dakota.

He was scared, Mom was crying. We took a trip down to Rapid City the following spring. It was there he learned how to weld.

He came back and worked O’Day Equipment, then at Skarphol.

He continued to have really bad seizures.

As I say, it was not an easy life.

But he was a good guy.

Everyone who knew him said, he was a good guy.

He loved hockey.

 That was his favorite thing in the whole world.

Even as a little boy, he loved playing hockey.

And for a guy his size, he could skate better than most people.

He also loved kites, and flying kites.

He would spend hours and hours just flying kites.

I think he just loved how it was a way to kind of escape life.

And he was funny.

He was a true clown.

He could make anyone laugh—well, except for Nana.

His jokes drove her crazy!

I am happy that all the hard times are behind him now.

I am happy that there no more seizures, no more epilepsy, no more pain, no more frustration in this life and all that life threw at him.

I hope more than anything else, that he is finally happy now.

I hope he is whole and healthy and fully himself.

I’m happy Mom never had to live to see this day.

She feared this day all those years.

And I am grateful that they are together again.

They loved each other.

And it’s good to know they’re back together.

I hope for the rest of us we can remember him for all the good that was in him.

And there was a lot of good in him.

I hope we remember his laughter and his joy and his ability to goof around, even if it went a little too far sometimes.

I hope we will always remember him.

Because he deserves our remembrance.

When Jason was baptized on October 18, 1959 at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church in Fargo, he was of course baptized in the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

But, at the beginning of that service there was a short formula that was used (it was used at my baptism 10 years later as well when I was baptized at Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Fargo).

During the baptism service, the Pastor Lloyd  Zaudtke made the sign of the cross on Jason’s forehead and said, 

“Receive the sign of the holy Cross, in token that henceforth thou shalt know the Lord, and the power of the resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings.”

In many ways, that summarizes Jason’s life, I hope.

He wasn’t, by any sense of the word, religious.  

But he was loved by God.

I know that.

And throughout all of his sufferings, throughout all of the many hardships of his life, he was still marked by that cross.

He lived, whether he was aware of it or not, in the fellowship of Jesus’ sufferings.

And now, we can believe, he lives right now in the power of Jesus’ resurrection.

That is my hope, and my consolation in this moment.

May angels welcome you, Jason.

May all the saints come to greet you.

And may your rest today and always be one of unending joy.