Jeff Mintle Obituary
Born in the summer of 1976 outside of Spokane, WA, Jeffrey Jonathan Mintle had a quintessential unplugged 1980s childhood. Days were colored by riding bikes and climbing trees; ad hoc parking lot skateparks and the original Star Wars trilogy in real-time on movie theater screens that couldn’t be paused, rewound, or skipped ahead.
“No cell phones,” Jeff wrote in a book he began keeping after his initial brain cancer diagnosis in 2022. “We skated until we were exhausted, watched the stars at night, and talked about life.”
In those days, the world was about as deep and wide as the long dirt road that led down to the lake behind Lakeview Terrace Trailer Park—but looking back, Jeff would come to realize that his curiosity, his wanderlust, and his dreams of the future set him apart from others in his rural community.
Jeff’s first job was cleaning the pool at the Coulee House Motel near the Grand Coulee Dam, and he and his dad split the $400 cost of a 1980 Dodge Colt in desperate need of a paint job. Driving the little light blue hatchback to work that summer, could he imagine that the initials “V.P.” would one day go before his name? Was he daydreaming of the brand new 2019 Audi S5 he’d one day buy for himself?
When he packed up and left for Western Washington University a few years later, Jeff’s grandmother, who was always called “Granny”, loaned him money to buy a Macintosh computer. It was 1994, and personal computers were only just becoming ubiquitous. Did it occur to him then, on that long drive to Bellingham, that he was riding between two worlds? Did he know that in the next world, the world of email inboxes but also of true love and the perfect family of four, those long drives across the state would become business trips to Tokyo, Hong Kong, London, and New York?
In 2000, Jeff began working at Zumiez—an international apparel retailer focused on youth culture, located in the Pacific Northwest. It was there, amid the style and culture he loved and a career he was thrilled to be cultivating, that he met Sydney.
“YOU WILL KNOW WHEN YOU’VE FOUND THE RIGHT PERSON,” Jeff wrote in all caps. And Sydney and Jeff both knew. They dated for one year, were engaged for another, and then married in a small ceremony that allowed them to put all their resources toward a honeymoon in London—Jeff’s favorite city; a place he knew Sydney would love.
“I think it was everything she could have dreamt of,” Jeff remembered. And then some. A few weeks after their return she discovered she was pregnant; she believed she had a girl, and knew her name was London. But London was another five years down the road. First, a son: Liam.
“Seeing the kids being born was a beautiful thing,” wrote Jeff. “Seeing their loving arms wrapped around their mom’s. Just seeing the wonder and excitement in their eyes. Every time they try something new it creates a whole new world for them.”
“Sydney and I didn’t have anything, he wrote in his book, “but we were able to make a life for ourselves.” At once a painter who loved to create abstract and representational work as well as a disciplined and budding businessman who wanted to give his family more than he had, his even-keeled leadership and vision were eventually rewarded with respect, responsibility, creative license, and resources.
And, travel.
“For work, I got to go to New York and Los Angeles almost every year. Also the U.K., Japan, China, India, South Korea, Atlanta, Miami, Colorado, Boston, and Philly and others,” he documented. And he quickly figured out how to bring the whole family along and stretch the trips into family adventures. “It’s been amazing to see these places; it's shaped my perspective of our life, and our country,” he wrote. “I’ve been so blessed to have so much travel time with my family. We took advantage of every opportunity to explore the world. The kids are amazing at it, and they love it, too.”
“I hope you will make decisions based on what you really love, not about what will get you a higher salary,” he wrote in a section about values and life course. “For me, it never really felt like I was working. I was always chasing happiness and when I did that, things just fell into place. Love. Money. Security."
When, in the fall of 2022, Jeff began to have trouble articulating himself, a glioblastoma diagnosis came that would both radically reorder their lives and inspire them to carry on exactly as they were. “I never thought I’d have to entertain the possibility of not being here for Liam and London,” he wrote. As a family, they focused their love into a force that helped them believe in the best: that Jeff could adapt to the changes in his brain, that he could beat this, that he could survive.
“Now I feel like getting old is the one thing I want,” he wrote.
Through brain surgery, three courses of treatments, and the ups and downs of tests and scans, the Mintle’s shared love for each other inspired everyone around them. They made the most of every day—traveling back to their favorite city, London, and to Kauai. They went to Seahawks games, Yellowstone, and Suncadia. They went nowhere at all and loved that, too.
“I love our vacations, and our quiet nights around the house,” he wrote. Jeff and Sydney’s beautifully remodeled home on the Western slope of Queen Anne represented the success they had found together out in the wide world—but more importantly, it was a place that held the four of them perfectly. It was their sanctuary.
“Stay present in every moment; it helps make everything sacred,” Jeff wrote. “Staying in the moments with mindfulness and gratefulness is so important as I go forward.” He had been nurturing a new meditation practice and the presence he gleaned proved powerful when, in the autumn of ‘23, the future began to look limited. While all along, Syd and Jeff had been sharing their story on social media, this time they only shared news of the tumor’s regrowth with their closest community. Jeff’s desire for privacy in the last couple of months was a way to protect others and a way to protect the hope that maybe somehow, some way, this might all work out differently.
The late Louis Vuitton designer Virgil Abloh, the modern epitome of cool, creative kindness, had long been one of Jeff’s heroes in design and skateboarding, and in life. And Virgil had handled his cancer story similarly; telling almost no one so that when he died in 2021, the news shocked the world. On the evening of Jeff’s passing, a friend told Sydney that it had been on that same exact day—November 28, two years prior—that Virgil had died. It brought her great comfort to imagine the two of them together, skateboarding in heaven.
“What’s strange is that right now I feel somewhat one with God,” Jeff had written among the final pages of his book. And maybe with his heroes, too—with icons, with ancestors, with angels, and all of nature.
Measured in years alone, Jeff’s life was relatively short. But the breadth and depth of his experiences gave him a nuanced perspective of what it is to be human as one millennium passed into another. From his modest childhood home to global design studios; from his younger days full of health and vitality to the embodied knowing of terminal illness; from a slow, quiet world of simple pleasures to the hyperconnected technology of the 21st century, Jeff walked far and wide. He saw a lot, he lived a lot, and he accepted, respected, and valued a lot. And, as everyone who knew him knows, he loved a lot, too. And was loved deeply in return.
Oftentimes when people die, we don’t have the benefit of their reflections. But because of the memories and insights Jeff recorded, we know how he saw his life and we know what was important to him. We know what we wanted his legacy to be, and we know precisely how we can embody his spirit. The following is a list of simple, joyful things that colored Jeff’s world:
Ocean waves
Crickets at night
Acoustic guitar
Soft rain
Thunderstorms
Quiet mornings and birds chirping
The sounds of a walkabout in the city
My family sleeping quietly
The fun of new adventures and new plans
Riding a skateboard
Going to Seahawks games
Tailgating
A blank canvas
“Love is all we have,” Jeff wrote. “Love is safety. I am safe. I love you all and I hope that you will always remember that about me.”
Jeff was a beautiful soul who will be deeply missed by his family, friends, colleagues, community, and football family. Learn more about Jeff Mintle’s legacy here. You can also donate to the GoFundMe set up for the Mintle family here.
Jeff Mintle
July 12, 1976 - November 28, 2023
