Austin Anthony Netelbeek Obituary (1986

“Better to live one true life than a thousand lies. It is both a blessing and a curse to feel everything so deeply. There seemed to be two worlds” ~ David Jones, Love and Space Dust Austin Anthony Netelbeek beloved son, brother, nephew, cousin, friend and loving partner passed away on March 10, 2025 in Salt Lake City, Utah. Austin was born on March 2, 1986 in Salt Lake City to Peter Netelbeek and Diane Barrutia-Netelbeek. He grew up in Cottonwood Heights attending public schools, including Brighton High School. After graduating, Austin moved to Seattle, Washington to attend Seattle University, a private Jesuit college. He graduated in 2008 with honors in the field of Cultural Anthropology. Austin was a great lover of the humanities, from poetry, to music, to photography and art, and had a keen interest in every aspect of the human condition and spirit. While in college he immersed himself in the study of Native American Cultural Studies and spent six months on a study abroad program in Central Mexico, where he became fluent in Spanish. Upon graduation, Austin took a position with Free and Clear in Seattle as a smoking cessation counselor. Years later he transferred with the same company to continue as a counselor in Oahu, Hawaii. While living in Hawaii for two years, Austin entered graduate school to study nursing. In 2016, Austin returned to Salt Lake City to reestablish his life and took a position as a home placement coordinator with The Sutter Healthcare corporation where he worked with patients facing end of life hospice care. While working there, Austin met and fell in love with his partner Aerial Turner, a nurse and nursing case manager. The two not only shared their life together, they shared a deep gift for helping others with profound healthcare needs. Austin always carried an introspective and insightful spirit from his early life, particularly interested in studying a myriad of religions and philosophies attempting to accept and comprehend the differences and commonalities. Highly concerned with the plight of the earth and others, Austin was active as a volunteer for victims of homelessness at the Salt Lake Youth Resource Center and earlier he had worked promoting environmental causes at a recycle center in Seattle. Austin lived an extraordinary life in a short time. An avid hiker, snowboarder, and road-bike enthusiast, he also had a great passion for travel, having explored the beauty and cultural wonders of Europe, Greece, Argentina, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, and the islands of both Hawaii and the Caribbean. Curious through to his soft-spoken core, Austin was self-taught in numerous fields from finance and investment, to bike mechanics and photography. With his passionate Italian and Greek DNA (and love for his special grandmas) Austin took up cooking and gardening, learning to make traditional ethnic dishes and expanding that to many other culinary skills. These are some of his accomplishments, but deep in the crevasse of this man lay the soul of a modest natural artist, thinker, and poet. Losing Austin has been described by a close family member as “an unimaginable pain. Austin was such a gentle soul, too sensitive for this world. Speaking with Austin about poetry, music, photography—he lived on the border of those realms of greatness. He had much to share with the world.” Austin did share his insights, often writing deeply heartfelt letters expressing his thoughts and love to his parents and friends with great care and profundity. He has left us with many of those cherished words along with so many beautiful memories of his unique, open-minded spirituality, his authenticity, and most of all his softness, so desperately needed in the time of this now. My cup is overflowing to the brim with gratitude that somehow all past events have unraveled themselves to include our ongoing unique interaction. From fraction to whole, and so on, the story goes and flows as I keep my fingers crossed (though assuredly) that we will drift on in beauty together. ~Austin Netelbeek Austin is preceded in death by his maternal grandparents Tony and Ariella Barrutia; paternal grandparents Anton and Joanna Netelbeek; and Aunt Carla Barrutia. Survived by: parents Peter and Diane Barrutia-Netelbeek; brother Brayden Netelbeek and Eleni Shenk, and many aunts, uncles, cousins and friends. In lieu of flowers, the family is kindly requesting donations in Austin’s name to The Foundation for the Prevention of Suicide (Utah Chapter): https://afsp.org/chapter/utah, or Volunteers of America, an organization providing homeless shelters and other assistance to victims of homelessness: httpswww.voaut.org A family celebration of life service is being planned for the near future.