CJ Girard packed school lunches during the week and made fresh pancakes on Sundays. He played floor hockey with his kids in the basement, always pleading for one more game. On a rainy day, he’d sit by the woodstove and plug away at a puzzle. 

At the Concord Fire’s Central Station, he was known to start water hose fights and pull pranks on his friends. He was as bad at basketball as he was good at being a firefighter. 

As the solemn trill of bagpipes faded into a quiet chorus of sighs and sniffles, family, friends and fellow firefighters celebrated the life and public service of Christopher “CJ” Girard on Thursday. Inside Christ the King Parish, spouses leaned against one another. Fathers held their children tightly. Tissues were passed over pews. 

“Many of you have been asking, ‘What can we do? What do you need?’” said Shannon Girard, his wife of ten years. She replied with a request to live the way CJ had lived. “Be there for each other. Find your purpose, be true, and spend quality moments with your family. Speak up, even when your opinion isn't the popular one. Never turn down an opportunity to learn. Find what you love, commit to it, and see it through.”

Shannon Girard reminded their daughter Camille that she would always have her father’s independent spirit and spunky attitude. She reminded their son Greyson that he’d inherited his father’s stride and brown eyes. 

“Being a dad came second nature to him: he was gentle, protective, but oh so much fun,” she said. Fitting with his dedication to his craft, “his swaddle was better than mine,” she quipped. 

To CJ, being a firefighter was more than a job.

“Not too long ago, I asked him, ‘What does this badge mean to you?’” Shannon said, holding it up to the light as she spoke. “He replied, ‘It's my moral compass.’”

Sam Cahan worked alongside Girard for his seven years in Concord, and trained him when he joined Tower 1. He remembered his friend as outspoken, as committed to his beliefs as to everything and everyone else in his life. 

“Right, wrong or indifferent, if he had an opinion, you were going to hear it,” said Cahan, who eulogized Girard on behalf of his peers. “This was one of the beauties in knowing CJ: you never had to guess where you stood on anything. He was real, he was candid and he was genuine.” 

Girard had been rambunctious from a young age, recounted Father Richard Roberge, who led the funeral mass. Coincidentally, CJ and his brother, Corey, had been officers at the Church in Berlin where Roberge had spent time in his early years as a priest. 

As well as a tireless and hungry learner, Girard was a teacher, too. 

“I showed up to central [station] with the sole job of learning as much as I could,” said Jeff Kipphut, who had been mentored by Girard for the last year. “It turns out I wasn’t just learning about fire service, but I was learning a lot about how to be a good father, a good husband and just a positive role model.” 

Girard passed suddenly and unexpectedly at his home in Bow on March 1 after a brief illness. 

When Concord Fire Chief John Chisholm got the call, he couldn’t believe it. 

Girard was one of the most physically fit members of the department, Chisholm said, as well as an energetic member of his union and a vocal advocate for ways he thought the department could improve. He aspired to become a lieutenant, Chisholm said — and would have been a great one.

The 39-year-old tower operator not only idealized the department’s craft, the chief continued, but its purpose.

“He set the goal for himself to get on the tower, and he got there,” Chisholm said. “He didn't do it by pulling strings or by anything political. It was just by keeping his nose to grindstone, earning respect, using his own confidence and uplifting other people.”

Shannon Girard said her family has been overwhelmed by the support they’ve received from friends and family in and out of fire departments, and that it’s a testament to the good neighbor, servant and friend her husband was. 

Moving forward from the loss will be heavy, Cahan said in an interview. Water fights won’t be the same, and no one else could be quite so bad at “HORSE.” 

To honor Girard, though, will mean “staying true to yourself,” he said. “Give everything 110%, just like he would.”

 

Catherine McLaughlin can be reached at cmclaughlin@cmonitor.com. You can subscribe to her Concord newsletter The City Beat at concordmonitor.com.