- Date Of Birth: December 2, 1975
- Date Of Death: November 1, 2020
- State: Arizona
Gordon Grant Fraser came into this world on December 2, 1975 in Boston, MA and grew up in Princeton, NJ before heading out into the world and ending up on the left coast. On November 1, 2020, he spent a beautiful, sun shiny day riding the Ferris wheel at Golden Gate Park with his wife, Sauman, and son, Liam. He died suddenly late that afternoon after collapsing at home in Berkeley, CA.
In the last year of his life on earth, Gordon discovered he had colon cancer. He privately made light of the diagnosis and, in jest, questioned whether there was something in the chlorine pool water in which we spent so much time swimming in our youth. It just seemed to him like so many loved ones and friends and neighbors are coming down with a case of cancer these days. He had surgery just before Thanksgiving 2019 and started adjuvant therapy on New Year’s Day. Amid a global pandemic, he completed his 12-round course of chemo in June 2020 and was since then staying well and safe in this crazy, crazy world.
We remember Gordon as beloved “Baba” to Liam Glas Fraser, husband to Sauman Choy Fraser, son to Lindsey and B. Grant Fraser, brother to Sarah Fraser and Emily (Paul) Kaster, nephew to Mark Christie (a.k.a. Unk) and Meredith (Ray) Koplinka (a.k.a. Min), uncle to Chloe Kaster, cousin to Trey and Christina Koplinka, and treasured friend and colleague to so many more. We imagine him swinging hand and hand with Granny (Diane G. Christie) and Pepa (David G. Christie), chattering nonstop, peppering them with unanswerable questions, and shadowing them as they continue to go about their work and looking over all us beings still here on earth. He is the boy who Granny would never flinch to buy those grapes for at the grocery store when he said he knew his other grandmother would get for him. He had an insatiable hunger for honey buns, pecan swirls, and cinnamon Pop-Tarts that he could only get at Granny and Pepa’s house. He is forever the small boy riding his Big Wheel who wanted to be a disposal man when he grew up. We will go on chuckling as Gordon gives us the not-so-subtle clue to what might be in that shoebox-sized present underneath the Christmas tree (“It’s something for your feet!”). When something mischievous happens, we smile and laugh when he exclaims that “Sarah did it.”
He went on to study comparative religions and Asian Languages and Cultures at Kenyon College in Gambier, OH. In 1996, Gordon traveled to India, Nepal, and Tibet and awakened his spiritual and artistic mind and heart. He returned from his travels clearly affected by the experience on his own and abroad on the other side of the world. He graduated with honors from Kenyon in 1997. He later spent time in Boulder working part-time at a bookstore and part-time in construction while continuing his religious studies at the graduate level. He ended up back on the East Coast to pursue drawing, painting, and printmaking at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY, which is where he met his future wife, Sauman. He spread his protective wings around her and would not let her fly away. He was as ever the impressive scholar and artist. Gordon and Sauman lived together in Brooklyn and then Jersey City pursing art and design and carving out a niche in the professional world, before moving to the San Francisco Bay-area in 2015. Gordon found himself on a path in his career where his artistic design and technology interests met, most recently putting his talents to work for Google.
The move to the west coast also found Gordon and Sauman on the path of parenthood. Liam joined their journey in the spring of 2016. With his open heart, gentle soul, and calm nature, Gordon blossomed naturally into the role of devoted and loving father. He practiced every day to thoughtfully look in unto himself in order to reveal the best version of himself to his son and everyone around him. He found peace and joy spending time in the backyard with Liam, planting vegetables, watering the fruit trees, walking along the garden stepping-stones, digging holes, and making mud pies. He traveled with his memories full circle back to the time he spent as a child following in the footsteps of his Pepa around the yard and into the greenhouse. Some days it was enough to relax in a chair with his feet submerged in in the kiddie pool to watch Liam play and grow into his own little person. Other times it was just sitting and thinking and soaking in the quiet moments and looking up at the sky.
As a young man, Gordon found his way to the study and practice of Zen Buddhism. With that in mind, coming and going are just notions and concepts that cause suffering. If we practice understanding birth and death as doors through which we pass on our journey, we may live without fear and die peacefully without regret. Gordon came once before too soon and again when conditions were right and lived on earth and in this body for 44 years and many days.
