A Celebration

Last Thursday, May 19, my colleagues held a celebration of my life, a sort of mini-festschrift.  I'd been rather dreading this, not because it was yet another marker on the inevitable downward pathway to senescence and oblivion, but because I was embarrassed thinking about what my friends and colleagues might say and do.  I needn't have worried.  It was a thoroughly delightful experience in every way. I was really chuffed that two good friends traveled all the way across the pond for the occasion -- Miquel Porta came from Barcelona, and Raj Bhopal came from Edinburgh. Trevor Hancock came from Victoria, BC, which is about as far away as Barcelona and Edinburgh. 'Scutch' -- Doug Scutchfield, from Lexington, Kentucky -- didn't travel to Ottawa for the event, but did sent a lovely video tribute, which in a way is better because I have a permanent electronic record, which I could post on this blog if I knew how to do it. Mariella Peca, our longtime faithful office manager whom I recruited when she was still in her teens 40 or more years ago, has collected many tributes and is assembling these in a book which I'll see and be able to peruse at leisure next week. I could have had it sooner but I added my thanks and appreciation on the day, which delayed matters a little bit. There are also photographs along with quite a large number of written tributes, I understand. I'm eagerly looking forward to holding the book in my hands and reading it, I hope as soon as this Victoria Day long weekend is over. I put together a few photos myself, in a small Powerpoint slide deck and had this ready to accompany my thanks to everyone at the end of the day. But hardly anyone showed slides.  The event was held in a splendid setting, the Museum of Nature, just a few hundred meters from my condo.  It's a superb setting for an event such as this, but doesn't lend itself well to showing slides. It was catered supremely well, one of the best banquets I've ever attended. That was better than looking at a lot of slides! I'll probably be able to include some photos in the next post on this blog.