His coworkers called him the “Tornado” because some mornings, Nate Shurtleff was known to barrel into the IT department at Concord Hospital, seven minutes after getting out of bed. His plaid button-down shirt half tucked into his belt, a mop of hair scattered in all kinds of undefinable directions, wearing a pair of chinos that looked like he slid into third base the night before at a softball game.
With a never-ending trough of ice coffee in his hand, Nate was always on the move, putting out hundreds of technical problems throughout his years at the hospital, from the ICU to the maternity ward.
If he wasn’t rescuing someone after they forgot a password or username or jump starting a new computer program, Nate was reading about the world and all the small mouth squatters that wound him into a tizzy when discussing politics, sports and conspiracy.
And that’s just one place that will greatly miss Nate Shurtleff, a lifetime Concord resident, who passed away at 50 a few weeks back, tragically and suddenly.
For those that knew Nate, his passing still has this community wobbling weeks after his death (gross to write). He was a titanic ball of energy and someone that you just don’t easily put into the rearview mirror. You can’t. Not possible. Not yet, and definitely not today.
There’s a Celebration of Life at Pembroke Pines planned in October for Nate. There’s been numerous Facebook postings about him and a beautiful obituary written in his honor with the kindest of words, and rightly so. His family and the love of his life, Melanie, are still on many people’s minds.
The shock is still very real.
Nate was just a terrific guy to be around, plain and simple. His rapid-fire positions on anything from sports to politics were fierce and unraveled with expression and passion, a learned trait, no doubt, he earned from his older brother, Seth.
A group of lifelong friends of Nate’s will play golf together at Beaver Meadow Golf Course soon, silent amongst the pines, trying to process the fact that Nate is gone. And will fail, likely, miserably. The beer will help.
But, let me share with you something else about Nate. He was an organ donor, a man that offered his body up in death to those desperate souls that live each day not knowing if they will get another. Their bodies are failing, and whether it was a kidney or bad heart, an eye or damaged liver, Nate signed up to give all his organs away to someone that needed them next.
Nate was a good man with a good grasp on empathy.
It was enlightening to hear that Nate’s organs were quickly put to good use. He apparently had a great liver. And that delicious organ saved a woman’s life in her 40s a couple weeks back. No idea what her story was, but she now lives to see another holiday season. Thanks to Nate.
A man in his 50s was saved by receiving Nate’s left kidney. Back on the course the middle-ager goes. All thanks to Nate. Remarkable. These revelations in a text wove beautifully over the confusion compounded by the loss of Nate. And then cut that confusion in half.
Another man received one of Nate’s heart valves. That’s kind of nuts. And his lungs are being used in a major university research program.
Lastly, maybe Nate’s most wild accomplishment postmodern, was donating his corneas to a blind woman who is now able to see. These are not fairy tales. These are true organ stories.
And that was Nate.