Taken too soon, Gordon Ward left joyful music behind

Gordon Ward had a special way with people. The 54-year-old man most recently from Grays Hill could get people to smile, to dance, to open up no matter the situation, his family said.

Ward’s family is now seeing that outpouring of love come back to them from friends and neighbors after his death in a car and moped accident. Ward was traveling down Trask Parkway on his way to work around 5:30 on Monday morning when he was hit from behind by a driver in a 2015 Toyota. The driver, 22-year-old Jermasha Nelson, of Ridgeland, faces a felony DUI charge.

Ward’s wife, Gloria Ward, said her husband was a unique and wonderful man. He saved birthday, thank you and anniversary cards, pinning them up on the wall in their Grays Hill home beside pictures of his family and friends.

“He always turned them all around,” she said of folks who maybe weren’t as open or as unconditionally loving as he was. “Everybody loved him.”

Gordon Ward leaves behind a son, a daughter and two step-daughters, but he loved them all as his own, his step-daughter Debra Mendenhall said. He also leaves behind eight siblings, six grandchildren and three great-grandchildren, she said. He had a special talent for doing his girls’ hair, the mother and daughter said.

Gordon Ward worked as an in-home nurse for Comfort Keepers and was a server at Golden Corral, his wife said. He gave his all in everything that he did and always went the extra mile to help a client open up or be more comfortable, she said, adding that many of those patients’ families remained close with Gordon Ward after his care was no longer needed.

Songs and laughter were part of his daily routine, no matter the job he had to do, Gloria Ward said. Her husband’s favorite kind of music was probably gospel, she said.

Gordon Ward was in more than one church choir and even directed the choir at St. Peter’s AME church in Walterboro for a time, she said.

Throughout their 13 years of marriage and 22 years together, Gordon Ward would always sing “My Girl” by the Temptations to his wife, she said. It was one of her favorite songs, she said, and she loved to hear him sing to her.

“He took such good care of me,” Gloria Ward said, wondering aloud how her life would be different now.

The couple met through mutual friends in Galveston, Texas, while they were both working as nurses in a nursing home, Gloria Ward said. Their friends, planning to set them up, brought them both along to a Percy Sledge concert one evening, and Gordon Ward wouldn’t ask anyone to dance with him but Gloria. They were together from then forward, she said.

Even after such a tragic and unexpected passing, Mendenhall said her father would have asked everyone to stay positive and look for the good in the other driver on that fateful day.

Comfort Keepers set up a GoFundMe page on Wednesday evening to help with funeral expenses. Anyone wishing to give can go to https://www.gofundme.com/2nre938.

This story was originally published September 7, 2016 at 7:18 PM with the headline "Taken too soon, Gordon Ward left joyful music behind."