Caleb Clarke Holyoak Obituary (1990 - 2019)

Caleb Clarke Holyoak died April 21, 2019, in West Valley City. He was 28. Caleb was born December 12, 1990, in Salt Lake City, UT, to Bruce and Pauline (Clarke) Holyoak, the fourth of five children, and the most Scotch-Irish-looking of them all. He attended Murray High School and earned his GED just a few months before he would have graduated with the class of 2009. At Murray he played rugby and lacrosse, and worked for Murray City Cemetery in the summer. Caleb spent his next decade in an eclectic arrangement of jobs and passions—student, music festival goer, sweat lodge sitter, street sweeper, forklift operator, sound technician, mystic, gardener, fermenter, camper, and baker--before settling into what he described as his most fulfilling work, that of an apprentice electrician. He learned then what Whitman knew: “There is no trade or employment but the young man following it may become a hero.” And he was a hero! His broad shoulders, deep laugh, and sparkling eyes blessed strangers and friends. Caleb was acquainted with suffering. He was, for the most part, able to turn that suffering into an expansive way of being present with others in their own suffering. He defended the forgotten, spoke truth to power, argued for equality. He believed in and hoped to create a truer, better world. He sought truth, beauty, and justice—and he found it in places the rest of us are too busy to notice: the solstice rising through the sun tunnels in the west desert; the feel of warm pavement and urban weeds on bare feet; the story of belonging shared with a stranger or a friend by fire’s light. For Caleb, everything was alive and anything might be true. The cosmos filled him with awe. Caleb is survived by his parents Bruce and Polly Holyoak; siblings Isaac (Trevor) Holyoak, Rachel (Zach) Bradford, Hannah (Andrew) Glade, Liam (Kristin) Holyoak; nephews Monroe and CJ; grandfather David R. Clarke; and many cousins, aunts, uncles, and friends. We are here, we are here, we are here. Services are Thursday, May 2, 11:00 a.m. at Jenkins-Soffe Mortuary, 4670 S State Street, Murray, Utah. The viewing is Wednesday, May 1, 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m., also at Jenkins-Soffe. Final resting place at Murray City Cemetery. Shoes optional.