Rebecca, David and Jonathan all spoke at the Celebration of Janet Wendy's life. So did Dorothyanne, and a dozen or more of the people who came to the Celebration. So far I am able to post Rebecca and David's texts on which they based what they said. I will add a few more, especially Jonathan's, as I get them.
Here's what Rebecca said:
Anyone who knew Mum knows that she was supremely unpretentious, didn’t stand on ceremony and hated waste. So please don’t feel constrained to stay put in your seats. Feel free to get up, wander about, have a look at the memorabilia we brought to share with you, and please, help yourself to a cuppa and a bit of nosh so the catering doesn’t go to waste!
Our mothers are usually our first teachers. Mum taught me a great deal – or at least she tried. I wasn’t always the best pupil. One of the things she taught me was gardening – not just planting and harvesting, but composting, the role of wildlife; in short, the ecology of our back yards. To this day, gardening is one of my greatest joys in life.
Some of my earliest memories involve my mother and gardens, or gardening. When we lived in Sydney, Australia -- I would have been about 5 at the time -- we had a lovely, lush jungly garden that included banana palms. Among the wildlife in that garden was a blue-tongued iguana (actually, a lizard; JML). To my child’s eyes, this was a huge reptile and the first time I saw it, it scared the bejeesus out of me! I remember Mum came running to rescue me when I started crying at the sight of it, but she explained there was nothing to fear; the iguana lived in the backyard, just as we lived in the house. It belonged there.
A few years later we were living in Edinburgh. Our first house was a rented cottage on the outskirts. It came with its own gardener, a grouchy old fellow who expressly forbade us from messing around in his garden – something both Mum and I found most frustrating. The next year, we moved house again to suburban Greenbank crescent. The garden was smaller, but it was ours to play in and grow in.
That’s where Mum gave me my first garden – an old concrete washtub in the backyard. The seeds she gave me to plant were radishes. Many years later, when my husband and I moved to our first, and current, home Mum gave me some seeds from her favourite annuals to get my new garden started. She loved blue flowers. Perhaps they reminded her of Dad’s blue eyes. One of these was morning glory seeds. Twenty years later, the descendents of those morning glories are still growing.
So in honour of Mum, we brought a few party favours. At the back of this room, you’ll find two baskets of seeds – one radishes, although not descended from those Edinburgh radishes, and one of morning glory seeds. If you are so inclined, I hope you will take one to plant in her memory.
Now I have to mention that preparing these seed packages was a labour of love most fitting for Wendy. It cost next to nothing, the materials were practically free, and it took endless hours of patient labour. I owe a big thank you to my dear friends, DorothyAnne and Suzy for their help in that labour.
Also in the spirit of celebrating Mum, we thought we would share with you one of her signature dishes. Many of the people who wrote to express their condolences mentioned Wendy’s warm hospitality. As children, we always loved company because it meant Mum would make one of her special desserts and a favourite was Pavlova – a fluffy meringue cake covered in whipped cream and fresh fruit. On the same table with the seeds are some recipe cards for Mum’s Pavlova so you can continue to share her hospitality. I’m very grateful to my wonderful friend Carol for designing these and arranging to have them printed.
While I’m thanking the people who helped put this celebration together, I can’t forget to mention that the beautiful floral arrangements are the handiwork of my talented sister-in-law, Desre. And my little brother Jonathan
Before I turn the floor over to my brother David, I’d like to share with you a message from my neighbour Nancy. She wasn’t able to join us today, but dropped by last night with a lovely gardenia, which we brought today, and a note about how important it is to celebrate the life of a loved one, especially after that person has died of a long illness. Mum was quite ill the last year of her life. Those of us closest to her watched that amazing dynamo of a woman waste away, so that is our most recent memory. We really look forward to hearing your memories of Mum when she was what she was for most of her life… My husband Richard called her “the Energizer Bunny”.
If you are feeling tongue-tied but would like to leave a written message, or just jot some notes down for what you want to say, we have some blank cards at the desk over there.
At about 5 p.m. we will play a slide show of pictures from Wendy’s life. So please don’t hesitate to come see me if you would like to say a few words before then.
And now, here is my brother David…
My mother insisted that Rebecca and I would be confirmed in the Anglican Church because, as she said, she had made a promise. I still remember most of the creed from my confirmation, despite fighting against it at the time. My mother's determination and sincerity are memorable, and I repeated the creed in churches from Cyprus to Manitoba, including the words, "I believe in the life everlasting". In what sense do we really believe in everlasting life?
Thinking about God and trying to do the right thing are two gifts my mother gave me. Whether you believe in God or not, it is easy to believe in the continuity of a remarkable life like my mother's. Meeting a remarkable and diverse group of people who knew and loved Wendy makes it easy to believe in the immortality of the spirit that lives on indefinitely through the lives of others and those that they touch.
Yet each of us knows only a tiny piece about the remarkable and complex woman who was my mother. We may know that she was kind, humble, patient, but not unfailingly so. She was also tough, hardworking, thrifty, and down to earth. She had a soft spot for the rascal and the scallywag, and took joy from the revenge of the underdog. She lived with the sure knowledge that bad guys would eventually get their come-uppance, sooner rather than later if she had anything to say about it. But no-one could call her vindictive--perhaps more like an avenging angel.
My children called her grandma with a certain awe as if she were a superhero. Chris, the eldest, remembers the Maori hula dance for Grandfather's 80th birthday, catching fish by hand on a cottage dock, and of course her legendary thrift. I think the superhero that was grandma will also live on in their children and grandchildren.
But maybe the life everlasting is simpler than that, and more profound. Over there under the window is an unfinished woollen hat, a work in progress. Her life was well lived, but it is unfinished like that hat. It is for us to go on and do the good things that need to be done.
David Last
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Aftermath
Yesterday's Celebration of Wendy's life went very well. Richard counted 97 people in attendance at the beginning; very few left before the end of the speeches and some came in late so the total must have exceeded 100. We had seating for about 100, and there were a dozen or so lined up along the back wall when I spoke. I was followed by Rebecca, David and Jonathan, then Dorothyanne, Peter and I think John Jr, both of whom read some of the condolence messages;after that, Rebecca opened the floor to all present to say something about Wendy. Many did, and many more were ready to speak when I decided to call a coffee break. I had been looking over the audience, many of whom were elderly, and some looked exhausted, ready for a chance to stretch their legs. I half hoped we might all reconvene for more words about Wendy, but everyone seemed so eager to mill about, look at the memorabilia we had brought, or look at the slide show that Rebecca's colleague Jodi Rowland had assembled, that we let the rest of the afternoon pass in that way. It gave me and others a chance to circulate, meet and mingle, thank people for coming. I forgot to mention that if anyone wished, they could visit the electronic Guest Book and add their remarks about Wendy to the 40 or more already there. I had also wanted, as a postscript to my talk, to remark on the two miracles of meeting Wendy: first, the miracle that we met, given that the chance of that meeting was so vanishingly small; and second, the miracle that she had remained unattached until then, when it was instantly obvious to me that she was such a wonderful person: everything everyone said yesterday adds further proof of my instant impression at our first meeting. After that meeting and several months of writing increasingly affectionate and intimate letters to each other, we had well over half a century together. Next Monday, February 14, Valentine's Day, would have been our 55th wedding anniversary. I am grateful that we had so much living, laughing, loving together.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
A Celebration of Wendy's life
Here is the text on which I based my remarks at the Celebration of Wendy's life, on Friday February 11, 2011, a few days before what would have been our 55th wedding anniversary.
Wives usually outlive their husbands, so widows are left to tidy up. I did a gentlemanly act, allowing Wendy to go first: I spared her the dismal work of clearing up when half of a long, loving partnership dies.
Janet Margaret Last, known as Wendy (recalling her maiden name, Wendelken) had no funeral, because – in a final altruistic act – she donated her body to the University of Ottawa. No funeral, so instead we have this celebration.
There is plenty to celebrate. Wendy’s life celebrated humanity: how an altruist can unobtrusively make life better for individuals, communities, society. Her acts made a difference for the better, to a great many people.
She lived 85 productive years. Most were spent doing really good and useful things. Hers was a productive life in many different ways, and her actions touched the lives of many others through her commitment to volunteer work and innumerable little private acts of kindness and words of comfort.
Self-discipline gave her the strength of will to continue some activities when a lesser person would have given up. One of her volunteer jobs was to read books for the blind. These weren’t classics or novels, but textbooks and specialized manuals not available in the vast library of books on tape. She used to come home from one series of recording sessions in a state of gibbering twitchiness. She had been working through arcane instruction manuals for radio operators: not only Morse Code in all its infinite variety, but far more difficult to describe, the circuitry of radio equipment that radio operators had to understand and pass exams in before they qualified.
She could express complex concepts in simple language, and under trying circumstances. When David was about 4, we were in a crowded second class railway compartment a few minutes before the train was due to leave Liverpool Street Station in London, for Cambridge. Without warning, out of the blue, David broke the silence to ask that important question all small children ask, “Mummy, where did I come from?” She took a deep breath, looked at me with an expression I’ll never forget, and told him, in simple words, that Daddy had planted a seed in her tummy and he’d grown from that seed. He asked, still in the silence of that crowded carriage with all the other passengers listening, fascinated, “How did I get out of your tummy?” So she told him that too, in the same simple plain and truthful language. No nonsense about storks or gooseberry bushes, just the facts.
Nobody’s perfect. Wendy wasn’t. If provoked beyond endurance she could erupt like a volcano. When we lived in Edinburgh, a favourite Saturday lunch was pancakes. One wintry Saturday, concerned about my increasing girth, I opted out. Soon one, then another child came into the kitchen to ask what’s for lunch today, said “None for me, thanks,” and when the third to do so said, “Oh, no, not pancakes again!” She tore off her apron, screamed, “That’s it! I’m leaving this ungrateful family!” and stormed out of the house, slamming the front door behind her. But it was winter, bitter cold, and she hadn’t stopped to put on her overcoat. I recall a stunned silence, then tears from at least one of the kids. I grabbed her coat, jumped into our VW camper and took off to find and bring her home. I caught up with her, shivering and blue with cold, a few blocks away, still obstinately walking – striding briskly – away from home.
In 54 years she had only about three culinary disasters. She made some superb feasts and day-to-day meals that were consistently excellent. Her Pavlovas were renowned, light, fluffy, garnished with exotic tropical fruits and with a meringue and cream base that melted in the mouth. She had a rich and varied repertoire of appetizing biscuits, she cooked roast chicken with stuffing and all the vegetables to go with it. Ah! Those chocolate cakes! And rich fruit cakes not just at Christmas time, but all around the year.
What an imagination! She kept the tastiest home-made cookies, the ones my father called “compressed haggis” (crushed plain biscuits and walnuts with rich chocolate icing) in a tin labeled “RAT POISON.”
She excelled at all the essential home-making skills, especially dress-making. In 1962 I bought her a heavy duty portable Singer sewing machine; we got a 110 volt motor for it when we moved from Australia to the USA, and put the original motor back when we moved on to Scotland; then restored the 110 volt motor when we moved from Edinburgh to Ottawa. Now that sewing machine is 49 years old. We had to fiddle with it a bit after it turned 40, but it still worked fine last time she used it, which was 3 or 4 months after her diagnosis. All our married life, she made most of her own clothes, including her own wedding dress, and the children’s clothes too, when they were young.
The volunteer job closest to her heart was working with handicapped adults in the hot swimming pool at the Jack Purcell Community Centre. She helped to undress these paralyzed and usually heavy people, helped them into bathing suits, moved and massaged them in the water, and hardest physical work, helped them shower and get dressed in street clothes again. Her work didn’t stop there. These were invalid pensioners, very poor people. She brought home their fragile swim suits and tattered underwear, spent hours mending it, adjusting it to fit. She was a volunteer at the Jack Purcell pool for over 25 years.
Since her death I’ve been exploring her private space. From 1953, perhaps earlier, she kept a daily diary almost every day of her life until June 2010 when her fingers became too weak and clumsy for her to continue. These diaries recorded her life for almost 60 years. While she lived, I respected her privacy and never looked at her diaries. Now I’ve begun to read them. Many of her entries describe humdrum housework, the weather, a neighbor coming by for a cuppa, but it’s a measure of her self-discipline that she kept it up year after year, even if the most exciting event of the day was that she did the weekly wash, or the grocery shopping. Quite often there were days when there was something worth while to write about. It’s sometimes frustrating when she spares only a sentence, or even a phrase, to describe life-changing events like the decision to leave Edinburgh and come to Ottawa. After dipping into many of her diaries, I know her better and I have more love and respect for her than ever. I realize too how hard she worked.
I am in awe of her energy, her methodical, yet unobtrusive management of my life as well as her own. I think of the fluke, the way we met (she was one of two hitch hikers I picked up on the outskirts of Adelaide one sunny spring day in 1955). It so easily might never have happened, and what a transformative event it was for both of us. It led to 55 years of living, loving, laughing, that she wrote about in a little poem for my 70th birthday.
We are members of a very lucky age group. We traveled widely, met and befriended wonderful people all over the world. We’ve never been rich, but except for a brief period of real poverty when I switched careers from family doctoring to public health sciences research and teaching, we’ve always got by.
When she fell ill with motor neuron disease (ALS) family and friends rallied to provide material and moral support. The ALS Clinic staff, the ALS Society, and a community-based team of experts made her life comfortable. Rebecca's husband Richard provided gourmet dishes in pureed form when swallowing became a challenge; David came from Kingston to make large batches of nutritious soups. Her personal care workers Sharon Morrison and Sara Kerrigan, her occupational therapist Courtney Henderson, her visiting nurse Jodi Gannon, and the entire team at the ALS Clinic, especially Sue Geis, Sue McNeely, Elaine Cawadias, Margo Butler, and Frankie Nadeau, and a dozen or more others, helped make her remaining time as pleasant as possible. Her palliative care physician, Louise Coulombe, provided a perfect blend of competent, compassionate, common sense care in her visits to our home.
When ALS attacks early in life it is a devastating calamity. In the mid-80s, it is a gentle way to leave this life. It is quite painless and there is no interference with the working of the mind; Wendy just became increasing tired, slept more and more, until two days before she died, she went to sleep and did not wake up again. The worst thing was losing her speech, but we had a fancy electronic speech synthesizer which partly compensated. I can’t find adequate words to say how beholden we are to the charismatic, superbly competent, always helpful professional staff who cared for her.
We’ve had happy lives. I’m certain we owe that happiness to Wendy and her irrepressible spirit, her tolerance, her sense of humour. The comfortable apartment we shared is full of reminders of her presence and I never want to leave there. Wendy’s physical presence has left us; but her spirit lives on, and always will while I live, and I think also while our children and grandchildren live.
Blessings on you, Wendy my dearest, my lover, my best friend, my partner in life; and thank you for everything.
Wives usually outlive their husbands, so widows are left to tidy up. I did a gentlemanly act, allowing Wendy to go first: I spared her the dismal work of clearing up when half of a long, loving partnership dies.
Janet Margaret Last, known as Wendy (recalling her maiden name, Wendelken) had no funeral, because – in a final altruistic act – she donated her body to the University of Ottawa. No funeral, so instead we have this celebration.
There is plenty to celebrate. Wendy’s life celebrated humanity: how an altruist can unobtrusively make life better for individuals, communities, society. Her acts made a difference for the better, to a great many people.
She lived 85 productive years. Most were spent doing really good and useful things. Hers was a productive life in many different ways, and her actions touched the lives of many others through her commitment to volunteer work and innumerable little private acts of kindness and words of comfort.
Self-discipline gave her the strength of will to continue some activities when a lesser person would have given up. One of her volunteer jobs was to read books for the blind. These weren’t classics or novels, but textbooks and specialized manuals not available in the vast library of books on tape. She used to come home from one series of recording sessions in a state of gibbering twitchiness. She had been working through arcane instruction manuals for radio operators: not only Morse Code in all its infinite variety, but far more difficult to describe, the circuitry of radio equipment that radio operators had to understand and pass exams in before they qualified.
She could express complex concepts in simple language, and under trying circumstances. When David was about 4, we were in a crowded second class railway compartment a few minutes before the train was due to leave Liverpool Street Station in London, for Cambridge. Without warning, out of the blue, David broke the silence to ask that important question all small children ask, “Mummy, where did I come from?” She took a deep breath, looked at me with an expression I’ll never forget, and told him, in simple words, that Daddy had planted a seed in her tummy and he’d grown from that seed. He asked, still in the silence of that crowded carriage with all the other passengers listening, fascinated, “How did I get out of your tummy?” So she told him that too, in the same simple plain and truthful language. No nonsense about storks or gooseberry bushes, just the facts.
Nobody’s perfect. Wendy wasn’t. If provoked beyond endurance she could erupt like a volcano. When we lived in Edinburgh, a favourite Saturday lunch was pancakes. One wintry Saturday, concerned about my increasing girth, I opted out. Soon one, then another child came into the kitchen to ask what’s for lunch today, said “None for me, thanks,” and when the third to do so said, “Oh, no, not pancakes again!” She tore off her apron, screamed, “That’s it! I’m leaving this ungrateful family!” and stormed out of the house, slamming the front door behind her. But it was winter, bitter cold, and she hadn’t stopped to put on her overcoat. I recall a stunned silence, then tears from at least one of the kids. I grabbed her coat, jumped into our VW camper and took off to find and bring her home. I caught up with her, shivering and blue with cold, a few blocks away, still obstinately walking – striding briskly – away from home.
In 54 years she had only about three culinary disasters. She made some superb feasts and day-to-day meals that were consistently excellent. Her Pavlovas were renowned, light, fluffy, garnished with exotic tropical fruits and with a meringue and cream base that melted in the mouth. She had a rich and varied repertoire of appetizing biscuits, she cooked roast chicken with stuffing and all the vegetables to go with it. Ah! Those chocolate cakes! And rich fruit cakes not just at Christmas time, but all around the year.
What an imagination! She kept the tastiest home-made cookies, the ones my father called “compressed haggis” (crushed plain biscuits and walnuts with rich chocolate icing) in a tin labeled “RAT POISON.”
She excelled at all the essential home-making skills, especially dress-making. In 1962 I bought her a heavy duty portable Singer sewing machine; we got a 110 volt motor for it when we moved from Australia to the USA, and put the original motor back when we moved on to Scotland; then restored the 110 volt motor when we moved from Edinburgh to Ottawa. Now that sewing machine is 49 years old. We had to fiddle with it a bit after it turned 40, but it still worked fine last time she used it, which was 3 or 4 months after her diagnosis. All our married life, she made most of her own clothes, including her own wedding dress, and the children’s clothes too, when they were young.
The volunteer job closest to her heart was working with handicapped adults in the hot swimming pool at the Jack Purcell Community Centre. She helped to undress these paralyzed and usually heavy people, helped them into bathing suits, moved and massaged them in the water, and hardest physical work, helped them shower and get dressed in street clothes again. Her work didn’t stop there. These were invalid pensioners, very poor people. She brought home their fragile swim suits and tattered underwear, spent hours mending it, adjusting it to fit. She was a volunteer at the Jack Purcell pool for over 25 years.
Since her death I’ve been exploring her private space. From 1953, perhaps earlier, she kept a daily diary almost every day of her life until June 2010 when her fingers became too weak and clumsy for her to continue. These diaries recorded her life for almost 60 years. While she lived, I respected her privacy and never looked at her diaries. Now I’ve begun to read them. Many of her entries describe humdrum housework, the weather, a neighbor coming by for a cuppa, but it’s a measure of her self-discipline that she kept it up year after year, even if the most exciting event of the day was that she did the weekly wash, or the grocery shopping. Quite often there were days when there was something worth while to write about. It’s sometimes frustrating when she spares only a sentence, or even a phrase, to describe life-changing events like the decision to leave Edinburgh and come to Ottawa. After dipping into many of her diaries, I know her better and I have more love and respect for her than ever. I realize too how hard she worked.
I am in awe of her energy, her methodical, yet unobtrusive management of my life as well as her own. I think of the fluke, the way we met (she was one of two hitch hikers I picked up on the outskirts of Adelaide one sunny spring day in 1955). It so easily might never have happened, and what a transformative event it was for both of us. It led to 55 years of living, loving, laughing, that she wrote about in a little poem for my 70th birthday.
We are members of a very lucky age group. We traveled widely, met and befriended wonderful people all over the world. We’ve never been rich, but except for a brief period of real poverty when I switched careers from family doctoring to public health sciences research and teaching, we’ve always got by.
When she fell ill with motor neuron disease (ALS) family and friends rallied to provide material and moral support. The ALS Clinic staff, the ALS Society, and a community-based team of experts made her life comfortable. Rebecca's husband Richard provided gourmet dishes in pureed form when swallowing became a challenge; David came from Kingston to make large batches of nutritious soups. Her personal care workers Sharon Morrison and Sara Kerrigan, her occupational therapist Courtney Henderson, her visiting nurse Jodi Gannon, and the entire team at the ALS Clinic, especially Sue Geis, Sue McNeely, Elaine Cawadias, Margo Butler, and Frankie Nadeau, and a dozen or more others, helped make her remaining time as pleasant as possible. Her palliative care physician, Louise Coulombe, provided a perfect blend of competent, compassionate, common sense care in her visits to our home.
When ALS attacks early in life it is a devastating calamity. In the mid-80s, it is a gentle way to leave this life. It is quite painless and there is no interference with the working of the mind; Wendy just became increasing tired, slept more and more, until two days before she died, she went to sleep and did not wake up again. The worst thing was losing her speech, but we had a fancy electronic speech synthesizer which partly compensated. I can’t find adequate words to say how beholden we are to the charismatic, superbly competent, always helpful professional staff who cared for her.
We’ve had happy lives. I’m certain we owe that happiness to Wendy and her irrepressible spirit, her tolerance, her sense of humour. The comfortable apartment we shared is full of reminders of her presence and I never want to leave there. Wendy’s physical presence has left us; but her spirit lives on, and always will while I live, and I think also while our children and grandchildren live.
Blessings on you, Wendy my dearest, my lover, my best friend, my partner in life; and thank you for everything.
Friday, February 4, 2011
Celebrating Wendy's life
This week I've been preparing for the Celebration we are planning for Friday 11 February. So far, in response to targeted invitations, there are 66 people who have said they intend to come; if even only half actually show up, we will have a credible number in the memorial chapel at the funeral home. I invited the vicar of St Matthias church to open the ceremony but she is unfortunately unable to join us, so it will be an entirely secular event. That seems fitting. I don't believe in any god, or in any variation on the theme of an afterlife, and for the past 10-15 years Wendy had joined me in the ranks of unbelievers, even if she was not as committed as I am to genuine atheism. So the Celebration is going to be very casual and informal as well as free of prayers and hymns. With helpful suggestions from Rebecca, I've prepared a souvenir of the occasion to give to our guests; on the front there's a photo of Wendy with her dates of birth and death, etc; inside I've reproduced a few of her poems, and on the back there is a proud statement of some of her accomplishments and the official photo of her receiving the Governor General's Caring Canadian award. I've expanded on this in notes I've prepared for my talk, which will probably open the Celebration. The kids will follow me with their remarks, then as master of ceremonies I will invite members of the audience to say whatever they wish about Wendy. If the audience proves to be tongue-tied, I have a back-up, quotations from condolence cards, emails etc. Today Rebecca and I looked at the slide show that one of Rebecca's colleagues has prepared for us, with a sound track made up of a mixture of bird songs and lovely Armenian songs sung by Isobel Bayrakdarian. This will be on a DVD that we can send to the families in New Zealand and Australia. Tomorrow we will all go to the funeral home to go over the details with the funeral director. Stay tuned for more on this in future postings,
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