Nuclear accidents and radioactive fallout

About two weeks after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in April 1986 I was at the European offices of WHO in Copenhagen. My mission had nothing to do with nuclear power or fallout, but the entire professional staff, indeed the whole population of the Nordic nations, like the rest of Europe downwind from Chernobyl, was abuzz with the information in the media about radioactive fallout and the risks it posed. The experts on environmental health and radiation risks in WHO/EURO had a few more facts than the media, but not very much hard information. The Soviet authorities remained silent but nobody else was. A week or two later when I went on to Sweden an advisory notice had been issued to hunters: do not eat elk or reindeer meat, because these animals grazed on lichen, which selectively absorbed and metabolized radioactive caesium which was found in high concentration in the fallout from Chernobyl. Nearly 3 decades later the countryside around Chernobyl remains a no-go zone, cordoned off, no humans allowed. Now it's happened again. There is a no-go zone of 20 Km around the damaged reactors at Fukashima, and increases in radiation levels have been reported over Tokyo and elsewhere in Honshu. Increases have been detected in levels of radiation in the Pacific Ocean off the west coast of North America. It seems more and more likely with every news report that the Fukashima nuclear power plant disaster will have an environmental impact at least as great as Chernobyl. Possibly it will be many orders of magnitude greater. The news seems to me to be getting worse every day; the authorities are tight-lipped but experts everywhere sound very concerned when they are interviewed. My friends the Tsunoda family, especially Humio Tsunoda's daughter Sawako Takikawa and her husband and children live in Morioka, about 75 Km away. I haven't heard from her or others in the family since an email 2-3 days after the earthquake, saying they were all well but both water and gasoline were in short supply. Like Chernobyl, this nuclear reactor disaster is due to human failings, in this case the foolish design decision to locate emergency generators that could have provided power to maintain circulating water around the fuel rods in places where they were vulnerable to the tsunami that followed the earthquake. Japan relies heavily on nuclear power and will be forced to continue doing so because there are no credible alternatives. Rocks and hard places, irresistible forces and immovable objects come to mind: if Japan's cutting-edge postindustrial economy is to be sustained nuclear power is the only realistic option. Perhaps the Japanese people will decide it simply isn't worth the risk, and may collectively decide to opt for a simpler way of life, less dependent on huge amounts of energy.

Disarray east and west

The media seem to have difficulty focusing simultaneously on two large problems on opposite side of the world, the uprising against the Libyan tyrant Qadaffi, and the earthquake, tsunami and threatened nuclear catastrophe in Japan. If I were editing Canada's national newspaper, I think I would divide the front page into two vertical columns, one on Libya, one on Japan. In long perspective, the triple whammy in Japan seems more significant than the Libyan uprising, which seems now to be settling into a protracted conflict with uncertain outcome, no-fly zone and other interventions not withstanding. It is already having some impact on energy policies in other parts of the world including Canada: the price of gasoline creeps higher almost every day; today it's $1.25/litre. True, events in Libya are probably influencing policies of ruling factions in Bahrein, Syria, Yemen, but I think these are evanescent events, whereas energy policies, especially the use or non-use of nuclear energy, requires really long-range policies and planning, measurable in decades rather than months or years. Public opinion should never direct public policy, although in Canada now, ruled by unprincipled populists who do not seem to have a 'vision' of where they want to take Canada over the next few decades, this truism probably doesn't apply. As for the current nuclear threat in Japan, it seems to have come about as a direct result of the foolish design decision to locate the emergency generators that kept the water cool around the fuel rods in a place vulnerable to tsunamis, close to sea level. Now, a few days after I started this post, things are no better: In Japan, the 'safe zone' beyond the range of dangerous levels of radiation has been extended a further 10 Km, from 20 to 30Km. In Libya, the intervening forces seem unable to prevent mayhem and bloodshed affecting civilians in besieged cities. And here in the little backwater called Canada, whose current leaders take their foreign policy directions from those of Israel, we will know by the end of the day whether there is to be another election. If there is, will it make any difference? We can hope for that at least because it's up to us, even though we can't do much about what's happening in Japan and Libya. I for one would prefer to live in a nation led by women and men with a vision of where to direct Canadian potential than one led by populists with seemingly no vision.

Springing forward

Last weekend was gloriously spring-like: uninterrupted sunshine, temperatures in high single or low double figures, no wind. There is still snow on the ground and ice covers almost all of the Canal. But all sidewalks are bare and dry, and spring is definitely in the air. Everybody has a spring in their step and a song in their heart too. This was evident when I strolled along the nearby streets and everyone I saw was nodding and smiling, often exchanging a few words of greetings or even a brief conversation. When it's really cold and blustery, everybody is insulated with winter coats, hats, scarfes covering them from top to toe and nobody has time or spare energy for such niceties. Longer days and more sunshine lift the spirits too and have undoubtedly helped lift my spirits, draw me up and out of the trough of sadness and gloom in which I've languished since Wendy died -- since well before Wendy died to be accurate; the photos of us in the last few months of Wendy's life don't show me looking happy or smiling. Of course daylight saving time came in earlier than it used to, a legacy of the Bush presidency, one of the ways he chose to be warlike. (A BBC interviewer recently asked George W Bush if in his view, the USA still occupies the moral high ground it once did -- in the days, for instance, of FDR. Bush was unable to face the question, didn't attempt to answer it). Lately I've been distracted from the long drawn out process of clearing up Wendy's papers and art work by the pleasant task of reading and constructively critiquing chapters in Karen Trollope Kumar's memoirs. So far she has sent me 13 chapters of a projected 17 or thereabouts. She's maintaining a consistently high standard in my opinion, blending the story of her discovery of Indian life, culture, medical practice, with the story of her own family's development and growth. What's more, Karen has challenged me in several Skype conversations to get out my own memoirs, dust them off and get them into better and more readable shape than they are now. So I've begun to work again on my memoirs too. The fact that Wendy's life as well as my own, is woven into the fabric of my memoirs from 1955 onward is a powerful incentive: I can't restore her to life but I hope she will live through my memories of her. I mean to try really hard to achieve this!

The earth is angry again

On March 10 Japan was shaken by one of the most powerful earthquakes ever recorded. The epicentre was just off the east coast of Honshu, the main island, so it was followed closely by a horrendous tsunami, 10-12 meters high when it hit the coast too soon after the tectonic plates shifted for there to be adequate warning. Our televisions have shown many dramatic pictures of both the earthquake and the tsunami. The metaphor that instantly comes to mind is of an angry earth, angry at the excesses and stupidity of humans, shaking itself as if to shake us humans off the surface, and a great wall of water washing clean the detritus of our presence. I've tried in vain to contact Sawako Takikawa and her family in Morioka; I did make email contact with her brother Masashi Tsunoda who was in New York and replied to my email with the news that he had so far been unable to get through to her on the telephone; later in the day I heard on the news that the entire northern half of Honshu is cut off by ruptures of the electric grid and toppling over of most of the cell phone towers. So I'll just have to wait patiently like everybody else, hoping that all members of that lovely family are safe and unharmed.

Karen's story

This is a pleasant time of the year. Spring hasn't actually sprung yet, but the days are perceptibly longer, there's much more radiant heat in the sun, enough so the solar heat raises the temperature in my west-facing office or study to about 30C; unless I strip down to shirtsleeves, I swelter. The downside is that snowfalls like the one we had last weekend, melt very rapidly and there are pools of water everywhere, some of them deceptively deeper than they appear. A shoe-full of ice-cold slushy water can ruin a walk in the sun. There are other grey, windy, sleety days when it's best to stay indoors.

I'm fortunate to have something that absorbs my interest totally on such days. My friend Karen Trollope Kumar has written a memoir and is sending it to me one chapter at a time for critical comment. When Karen Trollope was a final year medical student at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, she went to Lucknow in India to get experience of medicine in that setting. She met Pradeep Kumar, they had a 4-year courtship, much of it by correspondence like Wendy's and mine. They married in a traditional Hindu wedding ceremony; Pradeep and Karen went to Rishikesh, where the sacred river Ganges changes from a mountain torrent to a broad river. They lived for several years in an ashram. She learned Hindi and learned a lot about the culture and lives of the local people, especially the women whose lives were hard, often hazardous, punctuated by many pregnancies that sometimes ended badly for the baby, mother or both. Her own first pregnancy was complicated but ended happily with the birth of a beautiful daughter, Sonia. They came back to Canada for the birth of their second child, Raman, then returned to a town called Pauri, higher in the Himalayan foothills than Rishikesh. Pradeep ran a network of rural community clinics and Karen focused increasingly on the health of the women, also on upgrading the training and skill sets of traditional village midwives. She became increasingly interested in a common gynecological complaint of the village women that was not caused by infection or inflammation but seemingly was these women's way of "speaking through their bodies" about their unhappy lot in life, in other words it was a culturally determined disease. She wrote up this work for her PhD in medical anthropology -- an elegant and erudite thesis that I had the pleasure of reading some years ago. But the district where they were working was shaken not only by a major earthquake, but by corruption, violence, murder, threats to her life. Wisely, Pradeep insisted on getting her and their two children safely away from all this trouble. They came back to Canada. Karen now works in family medicine at McMaster University medical school. Their hearts are still in India, however: they have bought a plot of land, built a community centre, and intend to go back to live and work there when Sonia and Raman have both left the family nest. So far Karen has sent me nine draft chapters of her book. She writes very well, and after reading each draft chapter as soon as I receive it, I await the next chapter impatiently, feeling rather as I imagine Charles Dickens's readers must have felt as they awaited each chapter of his serialized novels. I know, more or less, what is still to come. Since returning to Canada they have established themselves very well in Hamilton. Pradeep and Karen have been back to India several times, and so have Sonia and Raman; they are wedded to the culture and life of India and would rather be there than here; or at the least, have a foot in both worlds. I should not, and will not, judge the book before I've read all of it. But based on what I've read so far, I'm confident that this book will interest many readers. I hope she and her agent can interest a good quality publisher in publishing it.

Rebecca, David and Jonathan's remarks

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

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.

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.

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,

More signs of turbulence abroad

In notes for remarks I might make at the Celebration of Wendy's life, I've commented on our good fortune -- our luck -- to live when we did, and where. We evaded unscathed all the terrible turmoil in the world in our lifetimes, my lifetime: world war and regional and localized wars too numerous to keep accounts, genocides, massacres, violence all around. Now suddenly the Eastern Mediterranean region is in flames. Last month a relatively bloodless revolution deposed a dictator in Tunisia, giving restless, discontented multitudes in Jordan, Egypt, Yemen the signal that what was possible in Tunisia might be possible elsewhere in the region. But the TV images coming out of Cairo today look neither gentle nor bloodless; it looks like a spontaneous uprising of disenfranchised multitudes, and it's almost certainly too widespread, too spontaneous to be suppressed by police or military forces, some of whom seem to have joined the uprising. It's too soon to see how this will turn out but it looks likely that soon there will be a major regime change in Egypt. Across the Islamic world from Morocco to Pakistan there might soon be unrest, uprisings; in some countries it's all that Islamic fundamentalists need as a springboard to power, especially in countries were there is no credible alternative. The consequences are pretty certain to impinge on life here in North America. Wendy and I have been lucky, we've lived where and when these turbulent. restless, usually violent epochal changes in society have spared us. I hope our children and all others in their age group are as lucky, but the signs, along with other changes in the world, notably climate change and increasingly precarious food security, are ominous.

The first line of defence

Recent news items have highlighted the importance of maintaining public health infrastructure, the skills and expertise of public health scientists, the bricks and mortar,specialized laboratories, pipes and drains that keep clean drinking water and waste water laden with pathogens apart, ensure that food is safe to eat, workplaces and homes free of lethal hazards. In the last week we've had a boil-water-advisory in Gatineau, across the river from Ottawa; and in B.C. serious questions have arisen about the integrity of meat inspection. When I was a teacher of public health, my mantra was that the well being and safety of the people depends more on the integrity of public health services than on police and armed forces. Since potential terrorist attacks on the USA began getting such prominence after 9/11, western nations have thrown vast amounts of money at 'homeland security' -- but in this orgy of spending there have been some drastic cuts in routine public health services and the staff who run them. On Jan 19 evening, David ran a panel discussion here in Ottawa about involving academia and other sectors of society in national security. He wanted me in the audience to react when relevant questions came up. I felt a traitor when I reluctantly declined, but I've still got after-effects of so-called minor bladder surgery 10 days ago and didn't feel up to it. I'd have been a disruptive influence in the audience, running to the nearest urinal every half hour or so. He didn't get back here to sleep until nearly midnight and left to go back to Kingston about 5 am, so there was no chance to ask him whether the matter got much attention. I'll take it up with him next time we talk. Whatever was said last Wednesday, I believe public health services are as important in maintaining national safety and security as police and armed services; maybe more so.

Thoughts on permanency (of Wendy) and love

Today I had the following email, in response to an invitation to the Celebration of Wendy's life that we are planning for February 11. It's from our friend Mariem Martinson, who with her husband Ross Nichols has gone to live in Victoria BC:


This morning I was noticing that Wendy's handiwork is all around me. As you know, I have done a lot of embroidered art work. Good with colouring pictures with thread but useless with a sewing machine, Wendy helped me to create 3 tapestries by backing my work with beautiful silks, so they could be either hung on the wall or inserted in screens. Two of "our" creations are hanging on the bedroom wall. I then walked over to my meditation area in the spare room, and took my maala (my lapis prayer beads) out of the beautiful silk draw string bag, one of about 6 that Wendy and I made for my Buddhist friends. She did the real work (cutting and stitching the bags), while I braided the ribbons and threaded them into the bags using Wendy's bodkin. She never minded helping me, in fact she seemed delighted.

I sometimes had to remind myself that Wendy was not my age, she was so active; and so willing and happy to give of herself and her talents. Imagine, she even gave her body, so that her last earthly possession could benefit others.

I wanted you to know that for 49 days after Wendy died, I did a special Buddhist practice for her, called "powa," which is simply a traditional way for helping the deceased to have an auspicious rebirth with good conditions. Ross and I hung prayer flags for her on a mountain overlooking the Strait of Juan de Fuca. We think she would like the view and we will always think of her as we hike past even after the flags disintegrate in the wind. What ever variations we have in our views of reality, we love and celebrate Wendy.

Love,
Mariem and Ross

And here's a small excerpt from my email reply to a message from another West Coast friend, Jeff House, about love and friendship:

Reading all through Wendy's diaries will be a mammoth undertaking. She began keeping a daily journal in 1953, possibly earlier, and all are here save, significantly, her diaries for 1957 and 1958, the first two years of our married life. Very early in our married life, we both had grave misgivings. Had we made a horrible mistake? For those first two years, our marriage was a fragile, delicate thing. We had great sex, but other than through our genital organs we weren't connecting meaningfully. I recall that we had dark, perhaps evil, thoughts occasionally. Years later we confessed these to each other,but at the time it must have been obvious occasionally, perhaps even often. I suppose Wendy wrote down some thoughts of that nature in her diary, then later, possibly years later, she reread them, and destroyed these two small volumes (her early years were tightly compressed in small pocket-book sized daily diaries, room for at most a dozen lines per day if written very small, Later, when I began giving her a diary each Christmas along with other presents, they grew to 8 1/2 x 11 inch blank books usually with a page per day). I can't date the momentous, miraculous day - night - that our love became cemented, consolidated into a friendly, deep affection and understanding that we felt utterly confident would last as long as we both lived. It was before David was born. Quite suddenly however, we knew we would be all right, no matter what fate might throw at us. Of course we had rows, quarrels, after that. However, from the day we were married we adhered to a very important precept that came to us from my grandmother, "Never let the sun go down on a quarrel" -- always kiss and make up before bed. We did this, even in our darkest period, and it probably saved our marriage. That unhappy period, which I imagine occurs in many marriages, will pass if both partners in a marriage work at dispelling it, as we did.

So here we have some reasons why Wendy lives on after her physical presence has come to an end. There's much more I could say. I could paste in my essay on dying and death, that appeared in the Annals of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada. But I think I'll save that for another occasion.

Adventures in nursing with Janet Wendelken

Wendy's account of her experience at the Waikouaiti tuberculosis sanatorium (related in The Smile) is among the most moving of her prose pieces in Selected Works of Janet Wendy Last. Her compassion, practical common sense, devotion to care of her patients, shine through in equal measure. It is very sad that we failed in all efforts to encourage, persuade or coerce her into writing similar accounts of some of her other nursing experiences. Over the years she told me and I heard her tell others some stories often enough so I can probably tell them reasonably accurately, though not as well. Here are a few.

Making Raspberry Jam

This happened while she was a student nurse in Dunedin. World War II had ended but in 1946 or thereabouts, some things were still scarce or rationed. Several nurses came back to the hospital after a weekend off with buckets of raspberries; there were too many to eat them all for dessert. Making jam was the obvious solution. This requires lots of sugar but sugar was rationed. Janet Wendelken, a country girl, was volunteered to make the jam, and as sweetening agent, she used Golden Syrup or Treacle. Two things happened. The mixture burnt, filling the kitchen, the corridors, that whole wing of the hospital, with the pervasive smell of burning sugar. Then the saucepan (or perhaps it was a cauldron) boiled over, covering the top of the stove and much of the kitchen floor with a hot, sticky, rather horrible, inedible mess. That episode of jam-making has to be counted among Janet Wendy's failed culinary ventures. (Others followed during our half century and more of married life)

Caring for a dying patient and Observing the stages of dying

Wendy told me about this patient with tears running down her cheeks. He was a young man, a year or two older than she, with acute leukemia. Perhaps she was a little in love with him. In the late 1940s, there was absolutely nothing to do but watch him die. He was determined that he would 'beat' this disease and be back playing rugby soon. Of course that didn't happen, and as he rapidly deteriorated, she, as staff nurse on the ward, took a special interest in him. She sat with him offering words of comfort, swabbed the sores in his mouth, listened as he said he'd finally realized he was very seriously ill. Her account when she told me about him was far more vivid and moving than my bare summary. There came a day eventually when he said to her something like, "I've had enough of this. I'll go to sleep for a while now." He turned on his side away from her. Half an hour later he was dead.

Competing against taxi drivers

Janet Wendelken did her obstetrics training at Whakatane in the Bay of Plenty, close to a large Maori settlement where birth rates were very high. It ought to have been a splendid place to get rich and varied training in delivering babies. It wasn't. She told me all about it when we stayed for a few days at a very comfortable B&B, Pahutakawa Lodge, in that district. The trouble was that the Maori women disliked going into hospital (perhaps it was a tad racist?). Customarily, they waited until the baby's head appeared at the perineum before calling a taxi. More babies were born in taxis than in the obstetric wards. The taxi drivers all carried scissors, razor blades, clean string, piles of old newspapers (to soak up the mess, keep the seats of their taxis clean). Like some of her colleagues, Jan Wendy cut a deal with the taxi company, rode with taxis on the way to collect women in labour from the Maori community. This was after she had done enough deliveries to feel reasonably confident. She reached her quota, got her obstetric certificate, but some nurses with less initiative didn't reach their quota in the available time. Wendy loved the district, the work, the Maori people, planned to go back to work there for the rest of her life. Then she met me, and her plans changed...

Appearances can be deceptive

In 1953 Jan Wendelken was a staff nurse in the private wing of the Royal Northern Hospital in London. There was great excitement when a famous Hollywood film star, a he-man heart-throb, was admitted for a week's treatment; less excitement when the diagnosis was revealed. The tough guy had a venereal disease and required a course of penicillin. Moreover, he was almost a midget, not quite five feet tall, and built everywhere - and I mean everywhere - to scale. Jan Wendy had to jab his shapely but small buttocks with her needle and its load of penicillin four or five times daily. She learned that sets were designed extra small to make him look larger, that he wore shoes with soles six inches thick, that heroines had to be diminutive too, or if not, special camera angles were used to give the illusion that he was larger than she. This presented particular challenges when he played opposite a leading lady who was almost a foot taller than he (she was a peroxide blond who habitually styled her hair to conceal the eye that had a slight squint; they appeared together in several thrilling movies in the 1950s). Her patient was a gentleman, however, despite his diagnosis. When he was discharged he thanked his nurses, shook hands with each, and presented a pair of real silk stockings to each of them. Wendy still had hers, without any ladders too, 4 or 5 years after we married. I'll observe the rules of medical confidentiality and not reveal his name, or his blond lady friend's.

New York and Paris

Today I spent some time reading the scrap-books Wendy compiled of our experiences in New York in 1978-79 when I had a year-long period of sabbatical leave. By means of a little creative planning we stretched the time away from Ottawa to almost 15 months, mainly by adding holiday time at each end. Wendy's scrap books flesh out my photo album so we have a fairly detailed record of that wonderful experience, definitely among the highlights of our life together. New York is undoubtedly one of the world's great cities, and as Wendy's record attests far better than mine, we made the most of our time there. New York is a superb place for bike-riding, a fact that startles some when I make the assertion. The traffic density slows things down and bikes can weave in and out to some extent in perfect safety; and at weekends, Central Park is closed to cars, accessible only to people on foot or propelled by their own muscles on bikes or roller blades. Another long stretch of road inaccessible to cars was, in our time, the remains of the old West Side Highway, an abandoned elevated expressway. We could and usually did cover the 13-mile distance from our apartment building on west 123rd street to the Battery at the south end of Manhattan Island, on many weekends. In that way, and with the all-round view that a bike provides, traveling at a speed that makes assimilation of all the sights, sounds and smells eminently possible, we explored Manhattan very thoroughly. Until I got busy working on editing "The Book" - the massive public health textbook that is now called Maxcy-Rosenau-Last Public Health and Preventive Medicine, we went out about 4 nights weekly too, mainly to the little Off-Off-Broadway theatres that are dotted all over the island; we went to art galleries, museums, exhibitions. And in the hours I spent every day at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, Wendy went on her own to museums and galleries, all recorded faithfully in her scrap-books. They are a marvelous treasure trove.

It's interesting to compare and contrast Wendy's record with Renee Michel's view of Parisian life and culture, as set out in L'elegance du berisson (The Elegance of the Hedgehog). This delightful novel presents a microcosmic view of Parisian life among the occupants of an elegant hotel particulier or small apartment building. The perspective is mainly that of the concierge, Renee who is inconspicuous to the point of invisibility to the posh occupants of these luxury apartments. But Renee is an unusual concierge, a highly intelligent, self-taught voracious reader, attender of galleries, exhibitions and the like in her time off, more intelligent, more perceptive, more insightful than any save the 12-year old gifted Paloma Josse who is a genius trying to disguise her gifts. Then they are joined by a new occupant, Kakuro Ozu, a wealthy, cultured Japanese man who has lived most of his adult life in Paris, selling Japanese electronics to Parisians. We see Paris principally through the eyes of Renee and Paloma, but such is the skill of Muriel Barbery, author of this delightful little novel, that when (with very mixed feelings) I finished her novel, I felt as if I knew at any rate these facets of Paris and Parisian life as intimately, as thoroughly, as if I had lived myself at Number 7 rue de Grenelle. And how I wish my French were good enough for me to read this in the language in which it was written, rather than merely in translation, albeit I think an excellent one. Perhaps then I would understand why the author chose to conclude her brilliant little masterpiece on such a sad note.

Sympathy and Condolence Messages

Yesterday and today I've begun tidying up, taking down greeting cards and condolence cards. There's some overlap - people sometimes used Christmas cards to send condolences - and some wrote letters. Altogether 89 can be classified as condolence cards, and this blog is excerpts from some of them. If I can do it, I'll paste them into the Guest Book. Unless otherwise stated, these originated in or near Ottawa.

I was a volunteer at Jack Purcell Pool with Wendy. She was a tireless volunteer and she was helpful to everyone. She did a lot of extras like fixing bathing suits. I often wondered how she found the time to do all she did. (Susan Woolsey)

You and Wendy are in our thoughts and prayers (Valerie Ehasoo, Victoria BC; and Chris, Chloe, Gavin and Freya; sent with happy photos of past meetings in NZ and Victoria)

Wendy's death is a real loss because very few people like her have ever walked the earth (Janet Byron Anderson, Westlake, Ohio)

I join you in mourning the loss of such a shining star in our lives... In the midst of my sadness I have to smile when I think of Wendy. Her smile was so infectious. It was like a belly-laugh that came from somewhere deep inside her, a sense of joy that shone from behind her eyes. Everyone she knew basked in the warmth of her personality and sense of (often wicked) fun. She was a gift I will always treasure. (joan Fairweather)

I have admired your mutual dedication to facing a terrible illness with such grace and dignity (Deb McNeill)

Wendy gave me advice and provided much wisdom that I still live by today. I hope these wonderful memories will bring you much comfort (Lynn Quok-Mak and family)

We send you our love and that of all the family. With that love comes the hope of a peaceful Christmas with the love of all your family and friends holding you safe (Veronica McTernan and family, Edinburgh, Scotland)

We have all lost someone very special from our lives. She was the kind of person who touched people in a profound way. If I had known Wendy all my life I would be a better person just by her influence and example. I will cherish her memory and the moments shared with a very special lady (Heather Bale)

I will really miss my morning swims with Wendy. She was always of such good cheer, very fair, kind and wise. We had some wonderful discussions (Christian Jaeckl)

I will have fond memories of Wendy, particularly her grace and good humour even when such qualities must have been hard to muster (Clare Scullion)

Wendy was even sunnier than Kitty, which is going some. Kitty's main recollection was the awesome Wendy up on a ladder, trimming the tree next to the parking lot (Henry and Kitty McCandless, Victoria BC)

She was a wonderful person and we feel privileged to have known her (Natasha and Reiner Holbach)

Diane has dedicated all her beautiful hollihocks to Wendy, one for each child she helped (Ian and Diane Potter, St Peter's, So Australia)

May the memory of her lovely smile shorten your hours of loneliness (Julita and Kris Pirozinsky)

She was such a precious and wonderful person and I feel so lucky to have known her (Sally Small, and Kurt, New York, USA)

She was a most generous hearted person to all who knew her. Family Life has lost a very precious member who added zest to all our meetings and offered her own hospitality over and over again. We have lost a special friend (Valerie Hiscocks)

Wendy...was a woman of warmth and remarkable talents (Gunther Abramson)

She was a wonderful woman and we really appreciated her intelligence, humour, and sense of caring (not to mention her fantastic singing voice!), She made a dent in many people's lives at the nursing home and in the lives of fellow Abbottsford members. Thank you for sharing her with us (Abbottsford House staff)

Fiona and I have admired the way you've managed the past year. Your blogs have given us an indelible impression of the experience. If I ever find myself in a similar position, you will serve as my role model for coping with it (Jeff House, San Francisco, CA, USA)

I always enjoyed working with Wendy when we were both volunteers at the Museum of Nature. I will be at the celebration of her life in February (Isobel Muir)

She was such a positive person and i always picture her with a big smile on her face... you are a lucky family to have had her in your lives (Karen Craven and family)

...so many happy memories (Virginia Peck)

Wendy was an absolutely wonderful woman. I always looked forward to seeing her and I will never forget her beautiful smile. You and Wendy have taught me so much throughout the past few months and this experience will remain forever a pinnacle in my nursing career. I am thankful and honoured that I was able to help you care for Wendy. You are both such an inspiration and I can only hope that one day I'll be lucky enough to have a marriage and family as beautiful as yours (Sara Kerrigan, student nurse and personal support worker)

I will miss her light and warmth... her book - what a beautiful body of creative work! (Diana Fantu)

The two of you clearly had an extraordinary marriage and her death is a terrible tragedy for you (Vic and Ruth Sidel, Bronx, New York. USA)

Wendy was a very special lady (Barbara Drake and family)

I am so sorry. I know that you and Wendy had an amazing life together and these experiences will be conversations often with Rebecca, David and Jonathan. Your grandchildren will miss her as well. I feel privileged to have had Wendy as a friend. She was accomplished, and so modest and accepting (Helen & Amy Scott; Helen's husband died of ALS).

She was a lovely, cheerful, and wonderful companion for you as well as being such a charming person for the rest of us (Mary and Henk de Koning)

She seemed a very fine person who touched many lives, including ours (ALS Team, Ottawa Hospital)

I knew Janet - the name we called her at [Otago Girls' High] school - during the years when we were growing up at high school. And I remember what a staunch and strong person she was as a friend. Her parents' life was not easy and Janet had to work very hard to succeed in her education. She was such an honest and sincere person with high ideals that I remember these qualities after all these years. Her passing will leave a huge gap but also many priceless memories of the good years shared with you and the family (Lesley Jenner, Christchurch, New Zealand)

It was a joy to know Wendy and her cheerful, friendly ways (Helen and Erik Spicer)

Wendy was an exceptional human being. She will be missed by many (Leo and Lubja Benoiton)

Wendy's happy, positive influence on all who knew her will be missed (Audrey and Eric Martin)

I loved Wendy and will miss her cheerfulness and laughter (Suzy Juneau)

It was good to stay in touch over the 60 years since we were such good friends at Otago Girls' High School. John, you have been a tower of strength in her illness (Shirley Scambury. Christchurch, New Zealand)

All of us in the Family Life Group will remember Wendy with great admiration and respect, for her dignity and cheerful acceptance of the disease that she knew was to end her life. She was an amazing lady and a model for us all. We will certainly miss her but we will not forget her (Joan and Bishop John Baycroft)

You both have been such special friends. Wendy's wonderful sense of humour, her closeness to real life, and her big heart made her a very close friend over the more than 50 years since Harald and I came to Australia. We thank you both for your faithful friendship (Dodie and Harald Ziemer, Glen Waverly, Victoria, Australia)

Now some excerpts from the Guest Book and e-mails:

When my marriage to her son ended, she made sure I knew that our relationship would not. I was so touched by this, it still makes me cry. Wendy was such a giving person. I was so lucky to have known her. (Dorothyanne Brown)


I loved hanging out with Wendy, hearing about John's latest research, discussing ideas or talking about books, news related to family or friends (even friends I never met who I came to know through Wendy's eyes), hearing about the innumerable sewing jobs she took on, her latest art project. Wendy was very good at listening but when we had coffee on our own, she talked and talked; and I loved that. Wendy is one of the special people in my life. I will always cherish her.
Mariem Martinson, Victoria, British Columbia

Wendy was a wonderful friend to our family for many years. The children have lovely memories of receiving cards and letters from her when we lived in India. When I would visit John and Wendy in Ottawa, on trips back to Canada, I was always guaranteed a great meal and lots of stimulating conversation.
Karen Trollope Kumar, Hamilton, Ontario

Grateful to Wendy for the marvelous lesson of determination and courage, we offer our sincere sympathy to you, John, and your family.
Michel & Claire Caron, Ottawa, Ontario

...Then there were her letters. When John wrote, he was usually concerned with his work and what was going on in the world. Wendy complemented that with accounts of family doings and developments. She wrote as though she was chatting to you, often with vivid descriptions and light-hearted gaiety. Sometimes there were nice little sketches to display her natural talent.
Peter Last, Adelaide, Australia

If ever two people were meant for each other, it was John and Wendy. They gave wisdom and joy to all who knew them, family and friends alike. We treasure our times with them. With our sympathy, Devra & Lester Breslow, Los Angeles

I will always remember the twinkle in Wendy's eye and her gentle spirit that shone through all - even when her ALS had taken its toll.
My deepest condolences to you John and all the family as you grapple with her loss. May your love for her, and for each other, provide strength and solace in the time ahead. Pat Huston, Ottawa, Ontario

Wendy and I worked together as volunteers at the Canadian museum of Nature for many years. I am constantly reminded of her friendship and kindness by an oxalis plant which she gave me and which I still treasure. When I was a guest in your home I was impressed how lovingly you spoke of each other. You were a wonderful couple. My thoughts are with you at this time. Susan Rust, Ottawa, Ontario

A gracious, loving and much-loved spirit has left us. John, my heart goes out to you and your family in your loss. Chris Mills, Havana, Cuba

Wendy... my neighbour, my dear friend, my confidante & my mentor.
"Do your best every day"
"Forgive yourself & move forward"
"Always help those less fortunate"
Wendy was a remarkable woman whom I loved & admired. Her friendship towards me & my family was a wonderful gift.
Nancy Masters, Ottawa, Ontario

Wendy was full of life and didn't let things deter her from her goals. She was fun to be around and was always cheerful. We enjoyed being with Wendy and John and spent much time laughing and listening to Wendy's amusing stories. We will miss her friendship very much.
Pat and Don Muldrew (Ottawa, On)


The last time I saw Wendy was on a visit to Ottawa in mid 2007 when she was her usual lively good humoured self. She and John were wonderful hospitable hosts. I loved hearing about Wendy's tireless volunteer work, especially when she was quite elderly herself - what a dynamo! It was a real pleasure on that trip to reconnect with my Canadian cousins who I hadn't seen since childhood - they are a credit to John and Wendy's parenting skills and I just wish they all lived a little closer.
You will be sadly missed Wendy. My love to all the Canadian Lasts at this sad time.
Anne Last, Perth, Western Australia

I will never forget her as a neighbour when I was young, as a good and loyal friend to my mother, nor her enormous warmth and generosity when we visited you in Canada. Ironically we were on holidays in the South Island of New Zealand once more until a week ago, and had frequent thoughts of her while we were there.
Richard (and Patsy) Sweet, Sydney, Australia

Dear John - The way you and Wendy cared for each other over the past years has been all of a piece with your life's work. It has been a light for all of us as to how we can care for each other - and for this amazing planet we share.
David Waltner-Toews, Kitchener, Ontario

Ralph and I are so very sorry to learn of Wendy's death. We remember you both with great fondness, as our two favorite Bellagio co-residents during our time there so many (almost 20!) years ago. I can still see Wendy sitting outdoors, breathing in that magnificent scenery all around us, and capturing it so wonderfully in her sketches. She gave us several of them, just before we all parted; and by coincidence, just last week I came across them again, as I was re-ordering my study at home. What happy memories they brought back.
I so enjoyed our walks and talks, Wendy's high spirits and spontaneity, her naturalness and directness. In that milieu of such almost-intimidating luxury and elegance, stiff manners and aloofness, I think I might have felt very alone, had it not been for Wendy, who shared my own joy and wonder at being guests (for 5 weeks!) at that stunningly beautiful villa high above Lake Como, with the Italian Alps all around. In her presence I felt "at home," befriended, valued. That was a gift she had, I think, of making others feel she could see the best in them. Giving them the courage to be themselves. Inspiring us (as she surely inspired me) to "pass it on."
Ingrid Wendt, Eugene, Oregon

Dear Professor Last
I am very sorry that Mrs Last has passed away. I will never forget her kindness.
Masashi Tsunoda, Niigata, Japan

It is with deep sorrow that we heard this news. Your blog site says it
all - so very eloquently. What an inspiration you are - in fact, both of you were! Your offspring speak from the heart so well too!
What can we say to reduce your sorrow? Rejoice in your family and
friends and know your beloved is with you.
Ruth Bonita, Robert Beaglehole, Auckland, NZ

Oh John... My deepest, deepest sympathies. It was truly an honour to have known
Wendy. I will never forget helping her plan a birthday gathering for you a few
years ago. She was always so warm and sweet.
Sylvie Desrochers

I am very sorry to hear of Wendy's passing.
Your email is beautiful -- a tribute to both of you. You were both very fortunate to
have had each other and to have appreciated each other and this great good fortune
that you both earned and enjoyed -- and for so long. You have indeed handled it as a
gentleman. Esmee and I offer our sincere sympathy -- our thoughts are with you.
Steve Corber, Vancouver, BC

Dear Dr. Last,
I am so sorry to hear that Janet Wendy gone. My English is limited. I
moved that you love each other for your whole life. I would like to
say Hearty condolence to you may you have strength to bear this great
affliction.
Hehe Cheng, Harbin, PRC

I am both sorry that Wendy has passed away, and glad that it was in such a
gentle way and with such lovely acknowledgements from her loved ones.
You have been blessed with the love of wife and family, and you all seem to
share the gift of words too. It has been an honour to read and share in the feelings expressed in your blog. It was an honour to get to know Wendy too as a friendly neighbour.I send you wishes for continued joys and insights in life, as Wendy would
have inspired.
Wendy Philpott, Mont Tremblant

Dear Professor Last,
We are so sorry to hear the sad news of Mrs. Last’s passing.
Tears fell fast when we read your letter. You two have been an ideal couple for us.
We were fascinated with her warm personality. We will never forget the grand time we had with her in Japan and Ottawa.
We wish to extend to you and your family our deepest sympathy.
My father Humio Tsunoda joins us in expressing our great regret.
Sincerely yours,
Yasuhiro & Sawako Takikawa
Morioka, Japan

Lives Lived

Here we are, 2 days into 2011 and I've said nothing about seasonal festivities. Instead, here's what I hope the Globe & Mail will publish in its regular column, a sort of supplement to their death notices in which readers can volunteer an expanded version of the death notice, albeit a very brief one. Here is what we have produced collectively, to be illustrated by the topmost photo in the set I published on November 29.

LIVES LIVED

Janet Margaret (“Wendy”) Last

Wife, mother, grandmother, thrifty home-maker, international traveler, poet, story-teller, artist, altruist, Governor General’s Caring Canadian.
Born 14 October 1925, in Christchurch New Zealand, Died 15 November 2010 in Ottawa of ALS, aged 85.

Christened Janet Margaret Wendelken, her family name was preserved in her nickname. Lifelong learning defined Wendy. Scholarships took her to the elite Otago Girls High School in Dunedin, exiling her from home aged 13. Her school prizes are heirlooms. Competition for university places against men returning from war service deflected her to nursing.

In her self-deprecating way, she said her qualification for nursing was a strong back; but common sense, work ethic, sense of humour, tough-mindedness and warm heart were priceless assets. Her adventurous spirit, nursing skills, urge to learn more, took her from New Zealand to Scotland, nursing in NHS hospitals and privately. Her determination and indomitable will were proven when she had to raise funds for her passage to Britain, working off-duty nursing hours in an industrial laundry and a pickle factory. Her ebullient spirit shone through in how she related this story fifty years later. She saw Queen Elizabeth’s coronation, hitch hiked around Europe, nursed again in Perth, Western Australia.

In August 1955 Wendy and her friend Louise were hitch hikers, exploring Australia. Near Adelaide on a sunny spring day John Last, a young doctor on his way to play golf, picked them up. Wendy’s first words revealed her spirit of adventure, her sense of fun, her commitment to others less fortunate; and her smile captivated him. Abandoning golf, he spent the day showing them the farmland, vineyards, and rugged coasts south of Adelaide. They courted by letters across the Tasman Sea between Rangiora, where Wendy was nursing, and Adelaide, where John was a GP flirting with epidemiology.

They married in Adelaide on a scorching hot Valentine’s Day in 1957. Wendy soon had two children, Rebecca and David. In 1960 John left general practice for epidemiology. The family moved to Sydney, then to London, England, living on savings and a scholarship intended for a single man. Wendy’s domestic skills enabled them to survive, and they had fun discovering what to do free in London.

Thrift learned in her Depression era childhood was engrained in Wendy’s nature, as they moved from London back to Sydney where Jonathan was born, then to Burlington, Vermont, Edinburgh, Scotland, and finally Ottawa. In each new city, Wendy created warm and loving, albeit thrifty homes. Tin foil and plastic bags were reused. Styrofoam meat trays became insoles for winter boots. Old woollens were unravelled and re-knit as hats for the needy, threadbare sheets and towels were sewn together to give them years of new life.

Her impulse to keep learning and her irrepressible spirit made it easy to master in her mid 80s the high tech gadgets designed to compensate for ALS’s relentless destruction of muscle power: BIPAP ventilator, suction, power wheelchair, touch-screen speech aid helped her immensely. The whole family is beholden to the Canadian health care system and the compassionate, charismatic health professionals who helped us to care for her throughout the 18 month course of her disease.

She was grateful for life’s blessings, took joy in friendships and little moments of beauty, particularly in gardens, preserving these in poems and paintings. David and Jonathan have inherited some of her talent, and all three children share their parents’ love of words, literature and writing. She transmitted her love of gardens to Rebecca and thrift to Jonathan.

Wendy was a faithful friend, a caring neighbour, and a volunteer for many good causes: a Head-Start program for needy children, docent at the Museum of Nature, helping physically handicapped adults at the Jack Purcell Community Centre for over 25 years. She read books for the blind, provided primary school classroom support for English as a Second Language and special needs programs, unobtrusively performed countless other kind acts. Her lifetime of selfless altruism was recognized in 2003 with the Governor General’s Caring Canadian Award.

Rebecca, David, Jonathan and John Last

John plays barrelhouse boogie

Here's young John Last, my 19=year old grandson, beating out barrelhouse boogie on David's (actually, Dorothyanne's) out-of-tune piano, on Christmas Day. He could make a living playing piano, improvising, in a bar, nightclub, or brothel (where these are legal). No doubt he's got game. It's not called barrelhouse nowadays I hear, but that's what we called it when I was John's age. What's more, he played some of the hit tunes from those days, including In The Mood.His playing made my day. Overall, the days around Christmas passed off pretty well - there were moments when I almost forgot that Wendy isn't here now. But the nights are terribly lonely without her. I've tried several antidotes: the Kobo reader with its downloaded library of classics (in which I noticed occasional subtle differences between Google's Gutenberg Project version and each of my two versions of Pride and Prejudice (Penguin Classics and Collins Classics); both the latter are edited, and the Gutenberg project version has some notes in the back matter that imply editing; but I was too tired to read these carefully by the time I reached them. (These notes are hard to read too, in rather faint 10-point courier; I'll enlarge and change the font before I try again). No doubt the back matter of the translated classics will tell me who's responsible for the translation. I like this ebook reader more each time I use it; but I still prefer the sensuous pleasure of holding and reading a real book, while acknowledging gratefully the usefulness of a device the size and weight of a slim paperback that currently holds over 100 of the world's great books (plus another fifty or so I'd classify as schlock or kitsch). I've added one more that I bought from the e-book store - but loaded and read in comfort on the desktop PC with its large screen, rather than the playing-card size screen on the Kobo. My only real negative comment on the Kobo is the time it takes to "turn the page" - switch to the next screen.If I use a comfortably large font so I can read without glasses, I take in a page at once in much less time than it takes to get to the next screen. Maybe that's a price I must pay for being a fast reader.

Festivities

My children and available grandchildren did their best to dispel the despondency that was inevitable, I suppose, just at the thought of celebrating Christmas without my beloved Wendy. Much of the time they succeeded, and overall, I managed though once or twice I teared up (but I haven't had a full-blooded sob-my-heart-out bout of crying yet; perhaps it's not in my nature). On Christmas Eve, Jonathan drove me to Kingston in his newly acquired Ford Explorer - a 2002 model that has just over 100,000 Km on the odometer and is in splendid condition. He took great pains to examine cars carefully and his patience was amply rewarded. He's got a winner, and at a very good price. David, assisted by Peter and intermittently by John when he wasn't working, turned on his usual excellent hospitality with us and another guest, Tony, his research manager, a very interesting Canadian-born young man who lived for 12-15 years in Germany as a child, youth and young adult, speaks German probably better than English; he hasn't been back in Canada long enough to flesh out his colloquial English vocabulary as fully as possible and a few times asked for help with this. He's very well qualified, with a PhD in studies of terrorism/weapons of mass destruction so he is ideally qualified to lead the research team under David's delegation. Desre arrived from Toronto early on Christmas afternoon after Peter had left to drive back to Ottawa to stay with his mother, Dorothyanne. The floor under David's tree was covered with many gaily wrapped parcels. I gave David and Desre the 40-Year Doonesbury retrospective, having pre-read some of it with many nostalgic pangs at seeing again some of these wonderfully penetrating cartoon strips. This is social history of a high order -- and a huge coffee table book, which I look forward to dipping into on future visits to whichever home gives it coffee table status, David's in Kingston or Desre's in Toronto. In return, I received a Kobo e-book reader, preloaded with a selection of some 180 classic works in the Gutenberg project. Last night I read once again (for perhaps about the 15th or 16th time) Pride and Prejudice, and found the Kobo screen very easy to read though it takes a slightly irritating length of time to move on to the next page. On Boxing Day morning Jonathan drove us back to Ottawa, and after an hour or two to unwind, came back to collect me to drive across town to Rebecca and Richard's home for a second seasonal feast. R&R provided beautifully cooked and seasoned lamb, balancing David's beef so we avoided turkey both days, thank goodness (in the vocabulary of face-book, I long ago unfriended turkey and I'm pleased to find it's not a favourite among other family members). R&R had a big live tree too, and a vast array of presents that were duly exchanged. I supplied some liquid refreshment from Maclaren Vale South Australia for both feasts, and some gorgonzola and camambert too. I should add that although it was bone-chilling cold last night, Boxing Day evening, that was a trifling price to pay for bright sunny days throughout, and another today, December 27. There's enough snow on the ground and on rooftops to give everything a suitably seasonal appearance, and a bonus to have bright sunny days withal. Sunshine even on the short days we have at this season, drives away the gloom that tends to descend on us when there's heavy cloud cover, so long may these sunny days continue!

"Whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad".

It's an ancient Greek proverb that Euripides quoted in his tragedy, Medea. I think of Cassandra too: her fate was to be cursed by the gods to utter dire but true prophecies that would would be scorned, laughed at, never believed. I know how she felt. My 1968 prophecies about the future need for doctors weren't dire but too optimistic. I said that well-educated future generations would safeguard their own health, follow the precepts of public health and preventive medicine and stay healthy into extreme old age. In future, I said, we would need more home care specialists, more community nurses, better trained kindergarten and grade school teachers (there were a few hisses and boos when I said their importance would be recognized by higher salaries than the income of the average GP). I said all this with abundant facts to back it up, in the Great Hall of Sydney University before an audience of several thousand doctors and the press and TV cameras waiting to hear all about the first successful heart transplant from Christiaan Barnard who would be the first speaker after the coffee break. My fellow speakers in that panel discussion on "Future Community Demand for Doctors" were Lord Todd who had chaired the UK Royal Commission on Medical Education (for which I had directed most of the research from my base at the University of Edinburgh) and a gaggle of distinguished leaders of Australian medicine. I was reminded of all this recently when brother Peter sent me a framed photo I'd never seen or long forgotten, of all of us on the platform. All greeted my facts and arguments with sarcasm, derision, scorn or a mixture of all these. We were all wrong, they more wrong than I. (My text was published in the British Medical Journal in 1969); like everybody else on the panel, I failed to predict the explosive growth of medical technology, and the massive international migration of medical specialists that began in the 1970s.

In the late 1970s my research focus shifted to environmental health problems, especially to the global environment, and the complex life-support systems, marine and terrestrial planetary ecosystems without which life as we know it would be unsustainable. This time I hope I'm a Cassandra because if I am not and my predictions are true, my grandchildren and their children face a grim future. Reflecting on this, and on the ancient Greek proverb Euripides quoted, I think our elected leaders are not just mad but criminally insane. They don't even have plans to cope with the mildest let along more severe kinds of climatic catastrophes that are now quite certain to strike with increasing ferocity and severity as each future decade unfolds. As the scientific evidence mounts, becomes overwhelming, so too does the defiant denial, the lies, the opposition to seeing, hearing, learning the truth. Our government in Canada is among the world's worst offenders. I wonder what kind of people they can be. Have they no children, grandchildren? Do they care nothing about the future? Willfully, knowingly, they eliminate funds for monitoring and surveillance in the Arctic, give tax breaks to the most environmentally destructive "development" - the Alberta Tar Sands - that the world has ever seen, suppress reports they themselves sponsored when these reports reveal the undeniable truth about harm to human as well as ecosystem health. That ancient Greek proverb assuredly applies to them.

Canadian peccadilloes pale to insignificance compared to the grosser misconduct south of our border. When we arrived in Vermont in 1964 Wendy and I were disgusted by the profligacy, greed and waste manifest all around us, as seen in the loaded plates of people at buffet tables (and the way they elbowed others aside, like bloated pigs at a trough); we were appalled at the wasted food, discarded appliances, good clothing, furniture, put out with the garbage -- not passed on to the needy. The "manifest destiny" concept was explained to us, along with the absolute necessity of belief in god (I asked "Which one?" Was Thor acceptable? Or Zeus?). That was in the middle 1960s; since then the American Empire has declined further, shows more visible evidence of crumbling away even more rapidly than the British Empire did from 1945 onward - and we were the better for that empire's dissolution. More than half a century later, the dysfunctional American political system has demonstrated its inability to cope with its glaring social and economic problems as well as its inability to pick which wars to wage, and to win them; its security can't and won't be guaranteed by the gaudy array of extremely costly high-tech weaponry on which the bulk of the nation's borrowed money is spent. That ancient Greek proverb applies with terrible truth to the American people. To the detached observer they show many signs of collective madness far more destructive than the Civil War, the idiocy of Prohibition, the paranoia of the House Un-American Activities Committee, and the "War on Terror." The Tea Party reached the nadir of dissonant madness with its demand for lower taxes and less government, and the way things are going, it's not impossible to imagine them running the country in a few years. But enough already! Let's change the subject!

On a more cheerful note, today I roasted a chicken with all the trimmings, and without even a single glance at Wendy's notes. I should have tied its legs together to stop the stuffing oozing out, and I should have strained the fat off the gravy but I think my gallbladder can stand the slight overdose of fat. And the vegetables were cooked at the same time as the chicken was ready, so my timing is improving. All the same, I miss Wendy terribly. Her roast chicken was far better than mine.

Rebecca, David and Jonathan's Tributes

I am pleased that all three children wrote something for the Memorial Guestbook for their mother, my beloved Wendy. Jonathan wrote something almost as soon as the book went on line, and says now that he will add to it. David's eulogy appeared on December 4 and Rebecca's on December 5. Here they are in the order they appeared:

Jon: November 22, 2010
I will always miss my mothers humour. Driving around with her we could keep each other laughing all day long, as we did before she became too fragile to go out driving with me. While I was looking for land to buy she would point out places like a tiny island in a beaver swamp and comment on the solitude, the one rock to sit on, and the tiny tree to shade me. Even while joking she could make very wise comments about the properties I was looking at and always gave supportive and excellent suggestions. I'm glad that her sense of the bizarre and funny still carries on in the family.
~
Jon Last,
Ottawa

David took longer, gave careful thought to what he should say, and how:

David, December 4, 2010:

I will be very happy if my children and I can live our lives as well as my mother lived hers. She exemplified the fundamental virtues of human decency and care for others, the necessity for hard work and humility, and a constant desire to improve herself and to serve others.

At many points, her life was not easy but she was tremendously grateful for life’s blessings and took joy in friendships and little moments of beauty, particularly in gardens. My earliest memories of her are associated with a blue-tongued lizard in the garden in Sydney, vegemite sandwiches on sun-bleached wooden benches at a tennis court, being corralled on wet London buses, feeding pigeons in Trafalgar Square on a misty day, a little garden with a pond behind a row house in London, and looking for stranded flying fish on a rolling ship’s deck. If the fish were alive, she would throw them back rather than let them be grilled for breakfast. The smell of diesel on metal still takes me back beyond armoured vehicles in Germany to being cared for on a pitching ship by a mother as sea-sick as us kids. In cold, damp Edinburgh, she sat up on many nights coaching me through breathing exercises to deal with coughing, hacking, and shortness of breath.

I associate my mother not just with tender maternal care, but also with mental and physical toughness, with self-denial, self-discipline and self-deprecation. We were not always good children, and we sometimes got what we deserved. We were urged by example to assume that we were not perfect, and needed work—lots of work. My mother exercised daily throughout her life, restrained her love of sweets, kept a journal, wrote letters prodigiously, forced us to do homework, and challenged us in ways we didn’t always understand at the time. It seemed odd that she could be unfailingly kind to others, yet often tough with us. When we arrived in snowy Edinburgh, I was sent to my first day at a rough public school in Colinton Green nattily attired in blue plaid long trousers, to be introduced by the head mistress as a “wee boy just arrived from AMERICA”. The ensuing experience toughened me up considerably! I think many aspects of my mother’s life were hard, and she understood well that life was more difficult for those who were not tough, and those who shrank from challenges. When I was twelve and a bit of a loner, she told me I was wasting my life and had to get out and do something with it. Discovering scouts, cadets, and the army opened up opportunities for service of which I thought she would approve.

The church in mum’s life is a bit of puzzle to me. She attended regularly for most of her life, despite being married to a devout atheist. In New Zealand, she had been raised in the Anglican Church. In Edinburgh, we lived a short walk from a Church of Scotland, whose dour minister’s hell-fire and brimstone sermons surely reinforced a self-defensive work ethic to justify our existence on this earth in light of eternal suffering awaiting those who fell short. She would put on the roast and drag us down to church every Sunday morning, but often did not seem to enjoy the proceedings much. In Canada, both my sister and I were dragged to St. Matthias Anglican Church, and forced to endure confirmation classes, because she had promised that we would be raised in the Christian faith. “Once you’re confirmed, you can make your own choice, but I made a promise.” We were confirmed, and for me it began a life-long spiritual search, sometimes desultory, which has been a source of richness in my life, for which I must thank her.

Although the Church of Scotland and the Anglican Church in the Antipodes and Canada are all very much part of the establishment, my mother’s sympathies were always with the poor and disadvantaged, and I think as she got on in years, she lost patience with the aspirations of faith and prayer, and focused more and more on the need for good works rather than fine words. She had no affinity for the comfortable hypocrisy of the moneyed middle-classes, lighting candles for the sick but supporting tax cuts. For many years she kept a prayer on her kitchen wall: Thank God for all you have, Ask God for all you need, Trust God for tomorrow. It disappeared after one of the moves, and I sometimes wonder if that marked a turning point, or if she continued to find God within. Like her, I get teary eyed at church services, with the beautiful language of the King James Bible and magnificent old hymns in battered blue hymnals, with tunes that remind me of polished wood and old stone, and generations past. Like her, I miss the lost community of the congregation, but perhaps she knew by the turn of the century that that old world could not be recaptured in churches, and she found it instead in the people of the Museum of Nature, of the Jack Purcell pool and in the communities of the old, the handicapped, and the poor to whom she tirelessly ministered. The “salt of the earth,” the “soul of the community,” and the very best of the “Anglican Church-women” are expressions that were made for Wendy Last.

There was a small service at St. Matthias, but there will be no funeral, and perhaps that is fitting. Mum gave her body to science, and medical students will have a chance to learn from that tiny, tough old body that seemed so much less than all that she had meant to us for so many years. Tin foil and plastic bags were never thrown out, but reused again and again in our house. Styrofoam meat trays became insoles for winter boots. Old wool was unravelled and re-knit as hats for the needy, and sheets or towels that wore out were sewn together to give them years of new life. We would sometimes mock this thrift, which she took in good humour. As I learned to say before I knew what it meant, and as I often said with some reservation of belief, I can say truthfully today that I believe in life everlasting, as she did. I know she lives on in the good works of her life, and in the good lives of those she has left behind. We will miss her, and remember her.
~
David Last,
Kingston and Toronto, Ontario

Finally, Rebecca's tribute appeared the next day, December 5:

December 5, 2010
We moved a lot when I was growing up. Until we arrived in Canada, I attended a different school every year. That meant adjusting to a lot of new neighbourhoods, sometimes whole new countries. Throughout this time, Mum was a fulltime home-maker – our personal “ice-breaker” and bridge-builder for each new location where my father’s itinerate career landed us. Bright spots in my memory fragments – I was 4 – of a grey, poverty-stricken year, living my Dad’s meagre scholarship in London, England, include our Christmas tree. Mum found a nicely-shaped branch, she painted it white and showed us kids how to decorate it, shaping the tinfoil caps off milk bottles into silver bells by pressing them onto a lemon-squeezer. That branch sat in a bucket of damp sand with its glittering bells for long enough that a minor miracle occurred; the branches started to sprout new, green leaves!

In Vermont, she signed me up for pottery classes and a summer workshop of Martha Graham-style dance, where I imagined my 6-year old self very graceful and glamorous, twirling brightly coloured chiffon scarves. My brother David and I had swimming lessons in Lake Champlain during the summer and learned to skate on its glassy surface that winter. Arriving in Edinburgh at age 7, Mum enrolled me in ballet class, which was quite fun the first year. I dropped out the second year when a strict ballet mistress took to rapping protruding body parts with her cane. Subsequently, I rejected Mum’s suggestions of piano lessons – I had no interest in practicing, and Brownies (I didn’t like the idea of having to make my bed regularly to earn a merit badge). Instead, Mum enabled possibly the best kind of childhood. David and I were allowed to wander alone or with friends along the banks of the Braid Burn, a little stream that ran through the sizable park that was, literally, over our back fence. The only provisos were that we stay within the park boundaries and come when we were called. Calling us involved Mum climbing to the top of the compost pile at the bottom of our garden and, summoning a deep breath, blowing an antique coach horn, which reverberated down the valley, sounding rather like a particularly sonorous fart.

Mum was endlessly patient with all our childhood enthusiasms. She lent her oven to an ill-fated attempt to make our own pottery from clay we found along one stretch the Braid Burn. She allowed me a small patch of garden and some radish seeds for my very own first experiment in gardening. She taught me how to sew, starting with dolls’ cloths and later graduating to make many of my own cloths. She dragged us off to Sunday school every week, where we made friends with kids in the neighbourhood. When we arrived in Ottawa, Mum insisted we learn how to ski and took us skating when the Rideau Canal opened for skating each winter. The winter we arrived in Ottawa, Mum signed me up for Girl Guides. Two of the girls I met there remain my close friends to this day.

Mother-daughter relations are often fractious and ours was no exception. If there were times that Mum despaired I would survive intact to adulthood, or become a productive member of society, she never let on. And she always found creative ways to teach me important lessons. I had a large bedroom as a teenager and was not very good at keeping it tidy. One day, I came home from school to find my belongings scattered on the driveway and Mum, fed up with nagging me, tossing more of the detritus from my bedroom floor out the upstairs window. When I got over being furious with her, I started laughing at what a clever way she had found to teach me the value of my possessions. After that I was at least slightly better about picking up after myself.

One day, as quite a young teenager, I remember asking Mum how she could stand to spend so much of her time cleaning house – a task I still dislike to this day. Her answer was that she used the time to day-dream. Her favourite fantasy, she said, was a great big funeral – her own, where everyone would be terribly sad because they missed her so much. Well, we do, Mum, we miss you terribly.
~
Rebecca Last,
Ottawa, Ontario


I can add a footnote about that prayer, carved into a battered piece of plywood with a faded biblical scene pasted along the top -- a scene so faded it was illegible for many years. When we were packing to move from our row house on Waverley Street to the cottage on Echo Drive, Wendy actually threw out this homily. I saw it, retrieved it, and tucked it end on where it wouldn't be seen, in the large wooden box we had acquired somewhere in our ramblings. a junk shop in the Scottish Borders I think. So far as I know, it's still there.

Here too is what I wrote, on November 17, two days after she had died:

Within minutes of meeting her on August 7 1955, I knew Janet Wendy was a very special person. I wanted to know her a lot better than a brief casual chat would permit. Her smile first attracted me, that lovely smile she maintained all her life. Her first remarks to me revealed her sense of fun, her spirit of adventure and her passionate concern for others, whose needs always came first, before her own. By the end of that lovely spring day I had almost made up my mind that she was the girl I wanted to marry and have by my side for as long as we both lived.
Our early courtship by correspondence was a wonderful way for two shy people to get to know each other’s minds before we began to explore each other’s bodies. We were fortunate to experience this reversal of the usual order of things. Perhaps it helped us to bond to each other so securely. We each described our shared journey through life several times; our story is available in several places so there is no need to repeat it here.
Wendy’s life touched many others through groups she belonged to and at an individual level. Her work as a volunteer led to the Governor General’s Caring Canadian Award. Additionally she performed innumerable kindly and thoughtful acts. For instance she sent frequent postcards and short letters to little children because she knew what a thrill it is for a small child to get a letter addressed directly to them. The recipients included our three grandchildren, Sonia and Raman Kumar far away in the Himalayan foothills, some of the children in her New Zealand family, and others too numerous to mention. She visited sick and dying and housebound friends, bringing meals, books, words of comfort.
She described her childhood vividly in the collection of her selected works. I’m sad that despite much urging and encouragement from me and others, she never wrote a similar vivid and coherent account of her fascinating years as a nurse, which included heart-warming and hilarious experiences as a student nurse, a period of nurse-midwifery in a Maori community, hospital and private nursing in Scotland and in England, pediatric nursing in Perth, Western Australia, plastic surgery nursing in New Zealand, and finally while we were courting, more pediatric nursing at the Adelaide Children’s Hospital. She never returned to nursing after we married, other than to nurse our children or me through episodes of sickness, but she described some nursing experiences in her diaries.
She kept a daily diary of the events in her life from before we met until her fingers were too weakened and clumsy for her to write. I have never read that diary – it is hers, her private record. I am looking forward to reading it now. She says it’s a humdrum, boring record of her daily life but I know it is more than that and I am sure I won’t find it boring.
Wendy and I were both children of the great depression of the 1930s. That conditioned us to be frugal, to make do with what we had and not fritter our money away on unnecessary trivia. She outdid me in this in our most impoverished year when she and I and our two small children survived in London for a year on a scholarship stipend intended for a single man. Every week she walked miles to a street market, taking our toddler and his 4-year old sister, often both of them in our rickety old stroller, coming home with the two kids perched atop the cauliflower, potatoes, carrots, mincemeat, and other cheap, nourishing food she had carefully selected.
My life will be lonely and empty without her, but innumerable happy memories of our 55 years together will sustain me for the rest of my life.