Ross Casey

Ross Sumner Casey, incredible skier, outdoorsy, nature and animal lover, foodie, minimalist, ever-happy, and accomplished traveler, peacefully passed away in his home on Thursday, July 13, 2023 in the company of his loving wife, Ana Maria Casey; sister, Shona Casey; and sister-in-law, Marizabel Gonzalez, M.D. Ross' passing came as a huge surprise to many since he was so young and had always been committed to living a very healthy and active lifestyle. Ross was also a very private person and kept his physical challenges very close to the heart.

Ross was born in Los Alamos on December18, 1977 to Deborah Davis and Hugh Casey. Although Ross lived a less than average life span, there was nothing average about the life he lived. His life was full of love, generosity, laughter, and an unyielding sense of adventure and exploration. Ross moved through life with purpose. When he wanted to visit a new place and experience a new culture, he traveled. When he wanted to learn something new, he dove into the material. When he wanted to fulfill a lifelong dream of skiing in Japan, he booked the plane tickets without hesitation. When he wanted to commit the rest of his years to the love of his life, he jumped in with both feet and an open heart and married Ana Maria after only 9 months together.

Ross was always helping his friends, offering his car, a place to crash, or even money to those in need. He always took the time to check in on friends who were going through hard times. In the winter, Ross always took the time to prepare his wife's car for her on cold mornings. It was a small gesture that spoke volumes about his love for her. He quit his job to help a friend start a business and hired other friends into that business who needed jobs. He and his wife opened their home to an Afghani teenager who lived with them for one semester. He gathered clothes for refugees and volunteered in numerous capacities including ski patrol and he gave away every random snowboard and pair of skis he won in his life, which was a surprising number of times for any one person. Not only did he help his foreign niece perfect her English, but he also learned Spanish just to speak to Ana Marias' family and took a great sense of pride in being the whitest guy in the room who could speak Spanish. Ross was always so proud to be an uncle and watch his young nephews grow into the young men they are today. Throughout Ross' entire existence, he effortlessly collected life-long friendships during every chapter of his life.

Ross always fostered his love of animals, often rescuing abandoned animals as a young boy. As an adult, he always adopted rescue animals from the shelter. His kindness extended to buying weekly bags of dog food and gifting them to random homeless people with dogs.

Ross drifted through the Los Alamos Public School System from the early 1980s to 1996, graduating, to his parents' great relief, from Los Alamos High School in June of 1996. He later went on to graduate from the College of Santa Fe, New Mexico and then received his Master's Degree in Environmental Monitoring, Modeling, and Management from King's College in London. In his career, Ross was proud to have worked in various environmental fields for Los Alamos National Labs and Sandia National Labs, where he was awarded numerous environmental certifications. He earned his Program Management Professional certification and was nominated and voted to the board of directors for Adelante Consulting. Ross was always interested in learning something new and even despite all that was happening in his world, he enrolled in a program through the University of Texas at Austin to study artificial intelligence.

Ross took a lot of time to reflect on a simple question: What have I done in my life? It wasn't an exercise in counting accomplishments; rather it was a time to reflect on what mattered most to him and the people around him. What made him and others happy? What things made the world a better place for all of us? He remarked how much it mattered that he actively made a choice to be happy and always took the time to appreciate being alive every single day. His aim was to live a simpler life each day and to take nothing for granted. He focused on not rushing through life and enjoying every moment. He focused on his top five values: Compassion, Humor, Kindness, Honesty, and Gratitude, and put simply, he did his best to be nice to everyone and aimed to live happier, healthier, and more at peace with himself and the world.

Ross made a list of 50 things he wanted to do and he made a concerted effort to cross those items off of his list because to him, while it's fun to make a list of wishes, life is about making the effort to actually turn those wishes into reality. Ross said: "So now it's up to you to not only make a list for yourselves, but to actually DO those things on your lists."

Not everyone gets the opportunity to leave his loved ones with the gift of sharing what mattered most in his life. Few people get this chance to share parting wisdom and advice with those they truly cared about. For Ross Sumner Casey, sharing what mattered to him most in life was worth far more than a traditional obituary could offer. In the end, Ross was given 36 hours to live and through classic Ross Casey will power, he survived for 35 days.

To quote Hunter S. Thompson: "Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved body. The goal is to skid in broadside, tires smoking, body dented, leaking fluids, and your fuel gauge on empty; thoroughly used up and worn out, and loudly proclaiming, 'Holy shit, what a ride!"

Instead of flowers, Ross would hope that you will do an unexpected and unsolicited act of kindness for someone in his name. He said: "Do something surprising and unbelievably kind for someone who will not expect it...Something that is so generous you couldn't possibly do it often, but that would make somebody else's year complete, to know that somebody cared enough about them to do something at that level." At the very least, what would have made him the happiest is for you to go have a drink (or a cup of coffee) with a friend and reminisce about any funny story that comes to mind when you think of him. If we still haven't dissuaded you and you feel compelled to waste your hard-earned money to honor his memory, donations may be sent to the New Mexico Cancer Center, https://bit.ly/RossCasey, as they took incredible care of him.

Ross' celebration of life will be held on Saturday, October 21 from 10am-12pm at Netherwood Park (Princeton Dr. NE and Morrow Rd. NE) in Albuquerque with a potluck to follow.