March 20, 1975 – October 26, 2026
Mike Gaudin, born in Mount Kisco, New York, has left the building, and for the first time in his life, he has nothing to say about it.
Mike was a go-along, get-along guy, funny, always smiling, and always making everyone around him happy. He was also ornery as hell, and he’d disagree with his wife purely for sport, just to watch her get going. It was his favorite hobby, ahead of hoarding knives.
Mike and Melissa met later than most, but it was almost instant. Within four months, they just knew. It was the one decision neither of them ever second-guessed. During their courtship, Melissa challenged him to a wrestling match. Mike won, made her lick the carpet, and told the story for the rest of his life. She married him anyway, on February 23, 2014, which says a lot about her judgment.
For seven years, it was amazing. Then they welcomed their little girl, Sawyer Harlynd, and life got even better. Mike was the easy rider of the two, and Melissa was the one with rules. Between them, Sawyer got the perfect balance and a dad who could never say no. She was the apple of his eye and a true daddy’s girl, and he was done for from day one. She was the second-best decision they ever made.
Mike was the steady harbor that calmed their home. He was always up for Barbies and dress-up with Sawyer, and the nieces and nephews got the same deal, from playtime to trips to the movies. Whatever the kids wanted, Mike was in, and no one had him wrapped around her finger quite like his daughter.
He never met a silence he couldn’t fix. Mike always had a story, and if he was nervous, you got the director’s cut. He and Melissa didn’t really fight, which is why the one argument that ended with a cake going out the car window became a favorite. The cake was innocent. The subject of the argument is being withheld to protect the guilty.
He could not recognize a face to save his life. Every movie came with the same question: “Is that Brad Pitt?” No, Mike. It’s Gene Hackman. It was never Brad Pitt.
What he lacked in facial recognition, he made up for in flower beds. Mike loved the outdoors and getting his hands dirty, and he spent his whole career in landscaping. While managing the Children’s Mercy Hospital Kansas campus, he won the City of Overland Park’s award for best landscape and recreated the hospital’s logo entirely out of flowers, which earned him more compliments than his singing ever did. He also earned his certification from the Professional Grounds Management Society, so his opinions about your yard were technically expert testimony.
Mike loved live music, and above all The Doors, whose catalog he performed often and without invitation. He believed he had a melodious voice. He was alone in this. He had zero rhythm and was completely tone deaf, and neither fact ever slowed him down. Jim Morrison has been notified and is bracing himself.
He owned enough knives to arm a small militia, every one of them resting peacefully in a drawer. He loved the Chiefs, the Yankees, the Royals, and meat and potatoes. New foods got exactly one bite, delivered with the face of a man doing you a favor. He kept the house at winter in the summer and summer in the winter, and he considered the thermostat a one-man job. When he partook, it was scotch, no water, just ice. Melissa called him a professional. He never corrected her.
This past year, Mike fought the toughest fight of his life, and he fought it for his wife and daughter.
He is back with his brother John, who could talk every bit as much as Mike. Wherever they are, nobody else is getting a word in.
He leaves behind his wife “his property”, Melissa Donn, to whom he bequeaths his patience and calm, since she’ll need them now that he isn’t here to test hers. He also leaves her backside, which he smacked at every opportunity, entirely unsmacked. It is taking the news hard. To Sawyer, his daddy’s girl, he leaves his childlike spirit and his patience for her mother.
He is also survived by his parents, Richard and Jeannette; his brothers, Jim (Dara) and Rick (Emilie); his in-laws, Kent and Elizabeth Mohler and Sarah (Adam) Jardak; his nieces and nephews, Brittany, Joe, Mason, Jessica, Brooke, Billy, Amina, and Suraya, along with Mathew and Ashlyn, all of whom he adored more than they ever knew; and several great-nieces and great-nephews.
In lieu of flowers, pour a scotch, no water, just ice. Put on The Doors and sing along badly. Then tell a story, and make it a long one. Mike would hate the quiet.
A visitation will be held from 1:00 to 2:00 p.m., Thursday, October 29, 2026 with service following at Kearney First United Methodist Church, 1000 E. State Route 92, Kearney, MO, with burial following at Fairview Cemetery, Kearney, MO.
Memorial contributions can be made to Kearney First United Methodist Church in memory of Michael.
Arrangements are in care of Fry-Bross & Spidle Funeral Home, Kearney.
