Colin’s Celebration of Life, April 6, 2024

 

Donna was the Eulogy author and labored long and hard getting it just right.  We all felt she did a magnificent job capturing the essence of Colin.  The girls talked every day for hours on the phone as they put together the display ideas, Kirsten’s slide show, and myriad other details and of course Donna’s wonderful ideas and suggestions all got incorporated into what we felt was a moving tribute.    I mainly just walked, and walked and walked during that time, leaving most of the details to my creative family.  I did put the Colin photography book together but would never have been able to do that without Anna painstakingly taking 300 screen shots of all of his instagram photo postings.      The icing on the cake ended up being the stories form the Luke and Jackson kids.  I don’t think they would have been ready to share if we had had the celebration of life earlier than we did.

We have gotten a lot of feedback from numerous attendees, and they have been universal in their praise.  A common theme has been that even though some attendees really didn’t now Colin, they felt like they really knew hm after the celebration of life.

Eulogy

The Life of Colin Andrew Halffield

March 16th, 1989-January 13th, 2024

 

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. But the life behind Colin’s photographs are worth a million more……

Colin was a creative, curious, and caring soul who had a thirst for adventure. His family and friends constantly, “Where’s Colin off to now?” As a child, Colin could be found off trail on family hikes, conquering a lichen covered boulder or exploring caves and cliffs. He loved surprising his two older sisters with games and presents. At age seven, he snuck away to the Family Dollar store down the street to buy a toy cash register for his 8 year old sister Anna, using change he had saved in his piggy bank. 

Colin and his oldest sister, Kirsten, loved video games. As young kids they did not have a much desired Nintendo 64. Instead, they combined their creative juices, and crafted their coveted Nintendo out of cardboard and colored paper, drawing characters that moved around on popsicle sticks across hand-drawn environments. Colin enjoyed bringing his imagination to life. He sculpted characters out of clay to film his very own “Wallace and Gromit” stop motion, animated movie. 

An avid reader from a young age, Colin’s love of books spanned from historical fiction to encyclopedias, especially pertaining to planets and space, to fantasy adventures and medical literature. He enjoyed snuggling on the couch with his mom to read the “Harry Potter” series, painting a lightning bolt on his forehead to look like Harry. After the lights were out for bedtime, Colin had his flashlight ready for more reading under the covers. In addition to exploits on the page, his mom shared the adventure of teaching Colin to drive a stick shift, both laughing hysterically as they bounced around a local shopping area parking lot.

His fondness for backpacking was passed on to Colin by his dad, who beginning at the young age of 6, taught him how to set up camp, look for water, and enjoy the magic of the natural world. This passion continued throughout Colin’s life as he backpacked throughout the Colorado Rockies and southern Utah. Colin and his sisters dubbed their heavily treed and shrubbed backyard, Sherwood Forest, where they built treehouses, created fantasy worlds from items of nature and harvested garden produce in the summer. 

Colin’s curiosity could be a distraction, frustrating his mother as she tried to get three children to school in the morning before heading to work. When they were finally ready to leave, there was Colin, breakfast untouched, reading the encyclopedia. When asked why he had eaten nothing, Colin replied that he was interested in learning about the Great Wall of China. His ingenuity led Colin to attempt to build his own computer from scratch and to create intricate models using Legos. His resourcefulness extended to the kitchen, sawing his mom’s plastic cutting board into pieces, and duct taping them to work gloves to use as safety pads for his hands. Now he was ready for tricks on his long board, cruising down neighborhood streets.

After being taught to ski by his father, Colin’s fearless aptitude for adventure led him to live and work on the side of a mountain at Alta, to climb snowy slopes on AT skis, to ski numerous mountains, including skiing the trees, double black runs at MaryJane and heli-skiing. When no mountain was available, Colin was known to ski off the roof of his family home in the midst of big snowstorms.  

Colin’s penchant for pyrotechnics was legendary. When his sister Anna heard fireworks exploding off the roof of her dorm at Westminster College in Salt Lake City, she assumed Colin had to be in town visiting his friend, Warren, who lived in the same dorm. Sure enough…..college fireworks courtesy of Colin Halffield. While making movies with his Lego creations, it was not uncommon for the sound of mini blasts and the smell of smoke to emanate from the basement. 

As a teenager, Colin made friends easily and had a tender heart. He could be found in the hallways of Littleton High School, walking alongside his friend who had cerebral palsy, laughing, talking hockey and sharing jokes. Lifelong friends from across the country are present today, acquired from kindergarten, middle school, high school, college and Colin’s recent job at Mile High Eye Institute.

Hockey was Colin’s favorite sport both as a spectator and a participant. He played on his Littleton High School hockey team and later on an adult, rec center league. 

During summers he was a favorite babysitter in the neighborhood, a lifeguard at the neighborhood pool and a volunteer at Adam’s Camp. He expanded his teenage culinary skills of Totino’s pizza, ice cream sundaes, and nachos to become a skilled multi-cuisine cook, including Ethiopian, Asian, Creole and smoking meats on the Traeger.

Colin was a talented musician, learning to play piano, drums and guitar. He often relaxed in a quiet corner under dim light, strumming tunes. Some of his favorite musicians were the John Butler Trio, Ghosts of Glaciers, Billy Strings, Howard Shore, Dispatch and Hans Zimmer. 

As a movie and TV aficionado, Colin was drawn to science fiction and trilogy films such as Lord of the Rings, Star Wars and Dune. TV preferences included Band of Brothers, 30 Rock, Community, Parks and Recreation, Arrested Development and Severance. He was a political junkie who was a fan of satirists John Oliver and Jon Stewart. He advised his parents to tune into podcasts such as The Daily and Pod Save America, as well as interesting documentaries on history, medicine, travel, and science. After a recent viewing of Oppenheimer, Colin proclaimed its excellence, indicating that he purchased it to share with family & friends. 

Colin’s charismatic personality, and love of learning led him to a career as an ophthalmology technician and phlebotomist. His gentle wit and caring nature comforted patients and put coworkers at ease. Colin’s sense of humor was a hallmark of his personality, making him the most lovable person in the room. He never failed to make people smile and intuitively seemed to know when someone was most in need of a laugh. He was always surrounded by furry four-legged friends. Colin’s love of dogs was a constant throughout his life. His family never knew what fluffy critter would show up at the backdoor. 

Colin followed in his parent’s footsteps, finding his ultimate peace, joy, and adventure in nature. His admiration for the natural world spanned his lifetime. He built igloos under starry night skies, scaled rocky cliffs, and set up camps in high alpines on warm, summer days with dogs and wildflowers at his feet. When Colin taught himself to use a DSLR camera, his true passion was unlocked. Colin captured the vast beauty of the earth on his lens, as well as friend’s weddings, engagements, and maternity pictures. His love of photography took him on journeys across oceans, living on a sailboat in the Mediterranean Sea, swimming with bioluminescent fish in Colombia, chasing waterfalls in Iceland, squeezing through slot canyons in southern Utah, couch surfing across southeastern Canada and summiting peaks in the Swiss mountains and the Rockies. 

As Colin proceeds to the next great adventure…much too soon, may the grey rain-curtain turn all to silver glass and when rolled back, reveal white shores and beyond them, a far green country under a swift sunrise.

Colin’s photography can be viewed @Colinrado89 on 

Reflections:

Colin loved the universe. He marveled at it. He studied it. He captured it in his stunning photos. Billions upon billions of stars and planets and galaxies. Unimaginable complexity and beauty. Atoms that were in dinosaurs millions of years ago—and in stars billions of years before that—are all around us and inside us today. The Cosmos is within us. We are made of star stuff.  

Colin now lives in the waves of the ocean, in the minerals of soil, on the wings of a blue heron, in the vibrations of sound, and in the vault of the entire cosmos. Colin is transformed. He lives on in his love for us and in our love for him. 

Let us continue on with Colin…..to give the best hugs like Colin gave. Let us continue to laugh and tell jokes…..to make others smile as Colin did. Let us continue to climb mountains and explore the earth, and to marvel at the stars as Colin did. Let us continue to LOVE like Colin did. 

Let us continue on with Colin. 

He lives in us. His love and energy surrounds us. 

We love you Colin, forever and always. We will continue on with you.

Here are a number of photos from that day.