August 15, 2020
August 15, 2020
The Eulogy for Kjell given by his son Tron Jordheim at the memorial service in Columbia, MO on February 8, 2020. A version of this was also given at the service on February 22, 2020, in Brooklyn, NY:
Kjell’s eulogy
Thank you for coming today. We have friends and family here from many places. We appreciate your taking the time to be here to celebrate my father’s life and legacy.
This is not a sad occasion, although we will all miss my dad.. and we are grateful to have known him. This is a happy occasion where we can celebrate a long life that was well-lived.
There is another funeral taking place at the same time as this one on the other side of I-70 that is a sad funeral. It is for a young father in his 30s who was murdered protecting patrons and employees at the restaurant and nightclub where he worked. Could we take a moment of silence for Tershawn Kitchen and his family and friends, please.
Thank you….
My father’s life was a Christian journey. He grew up in the church, and as a youngster, he always felt most at home with his church youth group. When he was 14 he decided he wanted to be a pastor and lead a congregation.
His life is a good lesson for those who wish to follow Jesus.
In his early Christian life, he sought to be obedient to what he thought was expected of him. He sought obedience from those around him in the church and in his home. But as he continued to preach the Good News of the Gospels, and as he continued to teach about the grace brought by the New Covenant between God and God’s people represented by the sacrifice of Jesus, he developed.
He moved far away from the fire and brimstone approach and the literal interpretations of some in the faith. He became more and more convinced that the wonders of creation and the vastness of God were not capable of being defined or explained in worldly terms. It became clear to him that all a good Christian can do is to try to live with grace.
My father tried to treat people with grace. I don’t mean with politeness. I mean he gave affection and generosity for no reason, with no hope for anything in return.
My father was a recipient of grace many times. So many good things were put at his feet.
He also saw some hard times. He experienced difficult personal losses. He watched his parents lose everything in the great depression when he was a child. And he suffered the death of his own child when he was in his thirties.
My dad’s parents ran successful businesses in Norway in the 1920s. His father was a pioneer in the automobile industry and ran a diverse trading company. All of that went away in the great depression. But friends, family, church friends, and a social welfare system that allowed his family to live in public housing helped them survive.
Just when his family’s fortunes were starting to recover, the Germans invaded Norway and put him and his family in great peril. But friends and family, church friends, and people in the resistance movement helped all of his immediate family to survive.
After the war, he was given many great opportunities to serve others and to gain more experiences. His Marshall Fund scholarship opened so many doors for him.
He was greeted by people in the US with great affection as an immigrant. He realized later in life how privileged he was, and it brought him great pain and made him very angry to see how we as a nation have become so callous and cruel in our treatment of refugees and immigrants.
Later in life, church parishioners, community members, and friends and family graced him with their time, support, and affection.
My father sought to live in grace and to live with generosity. While living at Lenoir, he and my mother would come here to the manor and meet with foreign students from MU to help them with their English. He’d sit in the sun in the afternoons in a lawn chair in front of 14 Springer and greet everyone as they took their daily walks, so he could put a smile on a few faces and exchange a little human affection.
My father loved to laugh, too. That was one way he sought to lighten up the world and share some grace and generosity with people. Some of my favorite memories of childhood are when we’d watch a variety show on TV and howl at the slapstick bits and chuckle at the silly jokes. He found irony or humor in every situation and loved a pun or a play on words. He used his humor to make friends with people and to make it bearable to talk about difficult and sad subjects. On the day before he passed away, he and I were trading puns.
My father’s story is one of grace and generosity. He tried to live how he preached, telling the stories of how God developed into a generous, loving, and gracious God.
I used to go with him as a little kid when he visited nursing homes or hospitals, and when he visited the shut-in and the grieving. I never thought that much about it. I was just going somewhere with my dad. Later as a teenager, I realized what a unique growing-up I had. I am very grateful to have seen my dad being generous with his time and spirit with people who needed to feel some compassion or needed to hear a pun.
He may have worried about what the neighbors might say or how rules were being followed when he was a younger man. But as an older man, he just wanted everyone to be able to accept the grace of God, to be forgiven by those who they may have harmed, and to be able to forgive those who had harmed them.
My dad had a full life with my mother. They were married 69 and a half years. They loved each other greatly and helped each other in their careers and in their personal lives.
My dad was not a perfect man of course. No one is. But he worked on himself and worked on his faith, and developed a little every day.
I hope people will remember my father kindly. I hope they will be reminded to give grace and generosity when they think of him. I hope when people think of him, they will be thankful for the grace and generosity they have received from others. And I hope you’ll all chuckle at a silly joke he may have shared with you.
Please stay after the service and join us for a refreshment in the Fireside Room, which is just to the right outside of the Chapel and down the hall past the Grill restaurant and past the large meeting hall. Please come and visit with us. My Mom will do her best to hang in there, but we will excuse her if she needs to leave early for a rest.
Thank you so much for being here today. It means a lot to our family that you were here.
May we all live in grace and generosity.
Tron Jordheim
Kjell’s eulogy
Thank you for coming today. We have friends and family here from many places. We appreciate your taking the time to be here to celebrate my father’s life and legacy.
This is not a sad occasion, although we will all miss my dad.. and we are grateful to have known him. This is a happy occasion where we can celebrate a long life that was well-lived.
There is another funeral taking place at the same time as this one on the other side of I-70 that is a sad funeral. It is for a young father in his 30s who was murdered protecting patrons and employees at the restaurant and nightclub where he worked. Could we take a moment of silence for Tershawn Kitchen and his family and friends, please.
Thank you….
My father’s life was a Christian journey. He grew up in the church, and as a youngster, he always felt most at home with his church youth group. When he was 14 he decided he wanted to be a pastor and lead a congregation.
His life is a good lesson for those who wish to follow Jesus.
In his early Christian life, he sought to be obedient to what he thought was expected of him. He sought obedience from those around him in the church and in his home. But as he continued to preach the Good News of the Gospels, and as he continued to teach about the grace brought by the New Covenant between God and God’s people represented by the sacrifice of Jesus, he developed.
He moved far away from the fire and brimstone approach and the literal interpretations of some in the faith. He became more and more convinced that the wonders of creation and the vastness of God were not capable of being defined or explained in worldly terms. It became clear to him that all a good Christian can do is to try to live with grace.
My father tried to treat people with grace. I don’t mean with politeness. I mean he gave affection and generosity for no reason, with no hope for anything in return.
My father was a recipient of grace many times. So many good things were put at his feet.
He also saw some hard times. He experienced difficult personal losses. He watched his parents lose everything in the great depression when he was a child. And he suffered the death of his own child when he was in his thirties.
My dad’s parents ran successful businesses in Norway in the 1920s. His father was a pioneer in the automobile industry and ran a diverse trading company. All of that went away in the great depression. But friends, family, church friends, and a social welfare system that allowed his family to live in public housing helped them survive.
Just when his family’s fortunes were starting to recover, the Germans invaded Norway and put him and his family in great peril. But friends and family, church friends, and people in the resistance movement helped all of his immediate family to survive.
After the war, he was given many great opportunities to serve others and to gain more experiences. His Marshall Fund scholarship opened so many doors for him.
He was greeted by people in the US with great affection as an immigrant. He realized later in life how privileged he was, and it brought him great pain and made him very angry to see how we as a nation have become so callous and cruel in our treatment of refugees and immigrants.
Later in life, church parishioners, community members, and friends and family graced him with their time, support, and affection.
My father sought to live in grace and to live with generosity. While living at Lenoir, he and my mother would come here to the manor and meet with foreign students from MU to help them with their English. He’d sit in the sun in the afternoons in a lawn chair in front of 14 Springer and greet everyone as they took their daily walks, so he could put a smile on a few faces and exchange a little human affection.
My father loved to laugh, too. That was one way he sought to lighten up the world and share some grace and generosity with people. Some of my favorite memories of childhood are when we’d watch a variety show on TV and howl at the slapstick bits and chuckle at the silly jokes. He found irony or humor in every situation and loved a pun or a play on words. He used his humor to make friends with people and to make it bearable to talk about difficult and sad subjects. On the day before he passed away, he and I were trading puns.
My father’s story is one of grace and generosity. He tried to live how he preached, telling the stories of how God developed into a generous, loving, and gracious God.
I used to go with him as a little kid when he visited nursing homes or hospitals, and when he visited the shut-in and the grieving. I never thought that much about it. I was just going somewhere with my dad. Later as a teenager, I realized what a unique growing-up I had. I am very grateful to have seen my dad being generous with his time and spirit with people who needed to feel some compassion or needed to hear a pun.
He may have worried about what the neighbors might say or how rules were being followed when he was a younger man. But as an older man, he just wanted everyone to be able to accept the grace of God, to be forgiven by those who they may have harmed, and to be able to forgive those who had harmed them.
My dad had a full life with my mother. They were married 69 and a half years. They loved each other greatly and helped each other in their careers and in their personal lives.
My dad was not a perfect man of course. No one is. But he worked on himself and worked on his faith, and developed a little every day.
I hope people will remember my father kindly. I hope they will be reminded to give grace and generosity when they think of him. I hope when people think of him, they will be thankful for the grace and generosity they have received from others. And I hope you’ll all chuckle at a silly joke he may have shared with you.
Please stay after the service and join us for a refreshment in the Fireside Room, which is just to the right outside of the Chapel and down the hall past the Grill restaurant and past the large meeting hall. Please come and visit with us. My Mom will do her best to hang in there, but we will excuse her if she needs to leave early for a rest.
Thank you so much for being here today. It means a lot to our family that you were here.
May we all live in grace and generosity.
Tron Jordheim
