Saturday, October 31, 2020
As we say a final goodbye to our brother John, let us use this opportunity to remember him for what he truly was in his prime — a healthy young creature fully alive and engaged in the world. This did not take a great deal of effort on his part because he came admirably equipped for the job, which, in short, was to make sense of the world into which he was so unceremoniously introduced on that May morning in 1943. And he did, make sense of it, even though he grew up with three bossy older sisters. I remember a very young John, with wonderfully curly blond hair, “helping” his grandpa plant potatoes. As grandpa went along placing the seed potatoes in the ground, John carefully went behind him, totally engrossed in picking them out and putting them into his little pail. What strikes me now is the total involvement with which he tackled this job. I also remember a day when we were invited to bring our younger siblings with us to Dellwood school. The teacher asked John if he would like to draw something on the blackboard. He toddled over to the board and with great dignity proclaimed to the class “I don’t mind if I do.” He then meticulously filled the board with miniature airplanes for as high as he could reach. I lost track of John when I went to University. I do know he continued with his art. The rest of his story has to be told by others. I reconnected when John went to the Goodwill Manor in Duck Lake, Saskatchewan, where he lived out his last days. The staff there told me that they had very much enjoyed his company.