There’s so much I could say about Ilmo as a colleague, about the depth of his integrity, his sincere care for others, his collaborative and non-political/factional way of working with others, but I want to instead focus on who he was to me – as a friend and role model – because this is what’s been most on my mind as I mourn and miss the rare and wonderful person that was Ilmo.

Ilmo showed myself and others that one could creatively be or become whomever they wanted. He showed that in each moment you could play and work, laugh and be compassionate, sincerely care about what you’re doing but also forgive your mistakes, be kind to yourself, and take failure only as lessons. He showed all this, in most cases, simply by being Ilmo.

I’ve never met anyone quite like Ilmo, and I’m sure others would say the same. He was hilarious, brilliant, kind, generous with his time, and remarkably patient. His cultural references and memes could take a stale meeting and remind us that life is here to be lived and enjoyed and that one can play and work at the same time.

Ilmo’s love of learning and his curiosity were contagious. He was always willing to make time to help me and others, creating little mini classes at times. When he was teaching me R, I lost count for the number of dumb questions I asked him. And yet I never felt dumb when he helped me. He could make learning, which is so often frustrating and embarrassing, feel creative and fun.

He could make mistakes feel silly and yet productive at the same time. My graduate advisor once told me what what makes a great teacher isn’t the ability answer smart questions with smart answers, it was, instead, the ability to reply to dumb questions with answers that helped that person and the class grow and to do this in way where the questioner didn’t feel shame for having asked a dumb question. My advisor said that doing this created the emotional space for people be courageous and curious. Well, Ilmo had some blend of a natural and cultivated gift for this. I’m not sure if it was something he intended to do or if was just the way he was, or both – perhaps those that knew him longer would know.

I spoke to Ilmo just a few weeks ago and after we spoke I felt inspired and enriched. After that conversation, noticing and surprised by the way I felt, I was reminded that I often felt this way after speaking with Ilmo.

Ilmo was a true gift to this world, and especially to those of us that had good fortune of sharing some or a lot of our lives with him. I hope – and I know- that parts of who Ilmo was, the way he was, will ripple out through each of us into the world, across people, across time and space.

Thank you Ilmo, for who you were in this life, for being my friend, for expanding the space of possibility of what a human life could be.

Love, Keith

(attempting a silly photo here as a tribute)

Keith Hutchings