Matthew Allen Daud

Matthew Allen Daud, of Easton, Pennsylvania, died on the night of July 14, 2026, at the age of 69.

Matt believed that a person’s life was measured not by the dates that marked one’s birth and one’s passing, but rather the dash between those two dates. The dates are merely bookends; what mattered, what counted, and totality of a person took place in between. This was how he viewed his son Christopher’s life, and it is only right that we reflect on his life in the same way. This is not about his birth or passing, but the life lived in the dash. This is about how he spent his years, not on himself, but on other people.

Matt was born in Marion, Indiana, on May 1, 1957, to Patricia and Fred Daud, but he was not destined to stay fixed on the ground. He achieved his life’s dream of becoming a pilot, initially as a First Officer, and ultimately retiring as a Captain for United Airlines after 40 years in the cockpit. He safely delivered every passenger to their destination, passengers who never saw his exceptional attention to detail, precision, and focus. Just as in the cockpit, so too did he look after his family.

Those passengers never saw the sacrifices Matt made for his family. The 2 a.m. alarms to drive to Newark Airport. The quick-turn flights that he purposefully took so that he would be home in time – that same day – to see Chris and Katie get home from school. His peers wondered why he didn’t take longer, often more productive flights. For Matt, there never was a question – he chose the flights that ensured he would be home in time to coach basketball and lacrosse, and to help with homework.

In September 2017, Matt tragically lost his son, Marine Corporal Christopher Daud, at the age of 22 – a loss that shaped the next phase of Matt’s life. The Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors (TAPS), a support group, immediately reached out to our family, offering grief counseling, support, and understanding. Matt was initially reluctant to engage, his grief was his and his alone, but he found that he did not need to carry this burden alone. TAPS became a place where Matt rebuilt himself after this devastating loss. From those initial reluctant days Matt decided to share and pass on the support he received and to help those, like him, who lost a son or daughter in service of the United States. He volunteered to become a TAPS peer mentor and became a leader in the TAPS Men’s Program. In April 2022, in recognition of all his contributions to TAPS and survivors like him he received the TAPS Senator Ted Stevens Leadership Award for his outstanding leadership on behalf of military and veteran survivors. That same month he flew his last trip for United. He landed on a Friday, hanging up his flight jacket, and put on the ubiquitous TAPS t-shirt on Monday, joining the TAPS Survivor Care Team, sitting with fathers who had lost a son or a daughter in military service. Over the years that followed he made more than a thousand calls to grieving families, providing a ready ear, a shoulder of support, and a safe space for grief.

Matt was forever honest about what Chris’ death cost him and what it gave him. He said that losing Chris changed him completely. He would say that he learned empathy where before he had only known sympathy. He would dispel the notion that he once held, and many others did and do, that grief follows in neat, tidy stages or that there is a finish line; he said plainly that grief has no rulebook, that processing it is hard work, and that hope and healing do come, in time.

What made Matt successful at TAPS was what made him quietly stand out in life – he sought to embody the values he held. Honor, integrity, honesty, sacrifice were not abstract ideas, but daily instructions. He was quietly selfless; he did not want things or seek recognition. He only wanted his family to be safe, whole, and provided for in however he could. That is how he measured his life and in that accounting he was successful beyond measure. He was loved, completely and entirely, by his children, and he knew and felt it, always.

Matt was predeceased by his son, Marine Corporal Christopher Daud. He is survived by his wife, Marie Daud; his daughter, Katie Daud; and his extended family.

His legacy is not a list of accomplishments or accolades; he was proud of his TAPS award, but surprised and humbled by it nonetheless. The measure of his life is the people he impacted – the grieving fathers who he sat with on the phone or at the seminars; the kids like Chris and Katie he coached, the family for whom he awoke before dawn decade after decade, without complaint. He took the worst thing that ever happened to him and turned his loss into support for others. That was his dash. He spent all of it on us.

Calling hours will be held on Friday, July 24, 2026, from 9:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. at Finegan Funeral Home, 302 Heckman St, Phillipsburg, NJ, 08865. The funeral ceremony will begin at 11:00 a.m. at the funeral home. Interment at Historic Easton Cemetery, 401 N 7th St, Easton, PA, 18042, will follow immediately thereafter.

In lieu of flowers, the family kindly requests donations be made to TAPS, a nonprofit providing compassionate care and comprehensive resources to all those grieving a death in the military or veteran community, and which supported our family after Chris’ passing. Donations may be made at https://www.taps.org/donate.