How in the world atheists can even begin to mourn the passing of a large jacket of meaningless protoplasm is mind-boggling to me. According to atheist dogma--and Gould's own beliefs--his life was no more meaningful than a spring toadstool bloom.
So why mourn?
I believe the informed intelligence known as Stephen Gould persists and is having quite a personal revelation right about now. He'll come around.
Does not an atheist have feelings? Does he not love? Can he not be loved by others? Wouldn't his service to his fellow man give meaning to his life? Or maybe his quest for knowledge? While it is difficult for you to consider a life without God to be meaningful, it is not necessarily so to those who live it.