Everybody was there.
I was there with my family–meaning my wife and kids but also JJ and Tyler–and it seemed like just about the rest of the Long Beach sports world was there too, packed into the Wilson High auditorium on a chilly Saturday morning. We weren’t there for a recital or an assembly or a pep rally, although the events of the day ended up unfolding like a pep rally.
We were there to pay tribute to Keith Hansen, the former Wilson and Lakewood administrator and Century Club past president/volunteer, who passed unexpectedly and suddenly in December and left so many of us wondering at the machinations of the universe. It couldn’t really be that Keith Hansen, the most positive and cheerful guy anybody had ever met, had passed away so suddenly, could it?
This job means that I attend a couple dozen funerals a year, and they always serve two functions for me (and for the other gathered mourners, I assume). First, they serve as a big glaring sign on the side of life’s highway: yes, the person you’re picturing so clearly in your head is gone. There’s a collective value in that function: a memorial service helps a community come to grips with the reality that they’ve lost a loved one.
Second, a good service writes the final chapter of someone’s life. It ties the threads of their daily existence together into a story, one that everyone gathered can listen to, learn from, and take back into the world of the living to remember.
Keith Hansen’s story, told over two moving, funny, and meaningful hours, was a story of service, and of positivity.
Born in Green Bay and delivered by the Packers’ team doctor, Keith was destined to have a life filled with sports and great stories. His family moved to Long Beach in 1952 when he was four, and his architect father volunteered to draw up plans for the baseball fields at El Dorado Park, where he grew up playing baseball. Keith went on to serve in so many ways in the Long Beach sports world, but those weren’t the stories that resonated with me on Sunday.
What really stuck out to me were all the people pointing out how Keith served–with a smile on his face and warm words on his lips. He was a good friend to me and my family, and he always greeted us like we were his best friends. By the time I had listened to all the speakers Sunday, it was clear that was how he had greeted everyone.
There were hard moments, like with every service. Listening to longtime Lakewood baseball coach Spud O’Neil say, “I thought he’d be the guy up here for me” was a reminder that we don’t get to plan our lives, not to the extent that we think we do. Listening to Keith’s wife, Carol, talk about their lives together was a poignant reminder that we don’t get advance notice on how many days we have left with our loved ones.
But looking at that packed auditorium and listening to the stories told during the service and in the quad after, I was filled with renewed purpose about how I’m going to spend my days, however many of them I have left. Serving others is important, yes, but it’s just as important to have fun while doing it–to not give into the feeling that life is an endless list of obligations and tasks that have to be completed.
Keith didn’t live his life that way and I don’t want to live mine that way, either. Carol urged those in attendance to live their lives a little more like her beloved husband lived his–with joy in his heart and service in his deeds. I know I won’t ever replicate the way Keith impacted people–I don’t think anyone could–but I’ll do my best to carry those lessons into the new year.
