Remembering David: A Legacy of Love and Adventure

Today is David’s birthday. He would have been 52 this year, and watching his children in their last year of high school, heading toward graduation and their future endeavours. Instead, he’s gone. He left us two years ago.

His legacy and his life mean so much more than his death. It’s easy to focus on that dreadful time, but instead, I choose to remember the good times, the funny times, the amazing memories of a wonderful, smart, funny, and caring person. For his Celebration of Life – that I dubbed “David’s Party” last year – I wrote:

There is no time limit on grief. And, when it involves the death of your child, whether he was 5 or 50 makes no difference. The cycle of life has been disrupted in a way like no other.
When a parent dies, we feel sad, we miss that person with their counsel and advice, the hugs and the memories. But, we accept it because it is part of the cycle of life.

When a spouse, partner or even a sibling dies, again we feel sorrow deep in ourselves. We desperately miss that person. We mourn the shattered dreams of the future. We long for the companionship and the comfort that they brought to our lives. Eventually, we accept that, at some point, one of us had to die first and it happened to be the other one. It is sad, but again, it is part of the cycle of life.

When a child dies there are no rules. It is awful when an infant or young child dies – either from illness or accident. We all feel sad that a young life was cut far too short before that child had a chance to live a full life – or much of any life at all.

Even when that child has grown up and become an adult – he or she will always be your baby, your child, your special person.

Fathers and stepfathers feel grief deeply. Many don’t show it or say much, but the sorrow is there. Sometimes they are wrapped up in all of the “to do’s”, the practical matters that require attention, but they feel it deep within themselves even as they “do” and provide comfort to others.

If you are the mother of that child, grief takes on a whole other dimension. You carried that child in your body for nine months. You endured the birth process and you were astounded that you ‘grew a person’.

The bond existed even before the first labour pang hit. You nurtured the infant and guided the toddler. You wept on that first day of school, graduation day and when the child left home. You wept again at the wedding and after the birth of each of your grandchildren. Mothers weep. We weep because time passes too quickly. We weep with joy at the milestones of our child’s life. We weep with sorrow as each milestone in their lives marks the passage of our own lives too.

When your adult child dies before you, especially when they chose to die because, in their mind at least, life was too unbearable to live anymore, a piece of your heart is irrevocably shattered. The tributes that poured in over the next weeks and months after David’s death truly touched my heart – memories of childhood adventures, trips taken, and people who played special roles in his life. It has all meant so much to all of us left behind to mourn his passing, but also to celebrate his life and the joy he brought to many.

As a toddler and young child, David loved playing with his friends on Mayflower St., raiding my vegetable garden for snacks (a sneaky way to get vegetables into little kids); he had fun spending time with my parents and Ian’s in Saint John; riding his bike outside our apartment in Lincoln, Christmas Tree hunting at Dan’s camp in Penniac – wading through snow so deep he had to be carried; moving to Moncton and then to Woodland where he was introduced to life on a dairy farm.

During his summer breaks, he travelled with his father, Ian – at first in Canada, then in the USA, Mexico and eventually Europe. His postcards home were short but told of his adventures, the places he was seeing and what they were all doing. It opened his mind and his heart to other cultures and created a love of travel and adventure that never left him.

When Dan, David and I lived in Hampton, he made several really good friends. PJ and Jill Prowse were his next-door playmates. He and Jill made great memories together, including their class trip to New York City, where, she said, “he was a slightly off kilter, energetic, engaging and kind soul who made us all smile and laugh – a perspective he shared with everyone who had the honour of knowing him. He was a great friend and we are all richer for having known him.”

Greg Mills said that “Dave was that friend you were always glad was on your side”. The two had assorted adventures that contributed to some of the gray hairs on my head – like climbing Red Rock down on the Lower Norton Shore Road near our home on the hill without benefit of ANY kind of safety gear. Then, with another friend, Mike Barker, they made a video for a school class – a slapstick take on an Indiana Jones movie. Greg described David as the villainous antagonist who also played the wise and elusive sage to Mike’s fedora-doffing indie hero. I wish I’d seen that one!

David’s eclectic taste in music touched his friends, and me too. While the teenagers enjoyed groups like Nine Inch Nails, The Cult and more he also introduced me to music from other cultures, like Latin America – some of which are still on my phone playlists.

He was a good friend to many and, according to Greg, turned the heads of several girls with his red hair and good looks!

After David graduated from high school, he headed to Vancouver to study at Simon Fraser University. After his first year, he knew that academic life was not for him. Through his Uncle Andrew, he landed a summer job with a company called Mirage Illuminations. They supplied lighting and equipment to the movie/tv production industry. He’d found his niche. He decided not to go back to university and instead continued to work in the industry – and to travel. Oh, how he traveled.

He connected with another New Brunswick friend, Mike Ryan, who had also emigrated to Vancouver. As teenagers, they’d talked about wanting more excitement in their lives than small-town New Brunswick could provide. In Vancouver, they sought adventure in the city and surfing in the icy winter waves off Tofino on Vancouver Island.

David met Sonja Kuznetsov around that time and for the next 13 years they were together – traveled to some amazing places. They lived “van life” in Australia, picking fruit for a subsistence existence – who knew that now they could have made a fortune doing You Tube videos? They traveled to South Korea, Bali and beyond, experiencing many cultures and adventures together.

When Joel and I got married, David and Sonja made the trek to NB from BC to join in the celebration. The photos he took of our wee farm, the ceremony and the after-party were terrific. So many stories came out of that visit, not the least of which was when David and Joel’s brother, Richard, decided (being somewhat intoxicated and in the dark) to investigate my horse, Beau’s, pasture. We all heard the yelling as the two guys ran for the fence with Beau hot on their tails. Lesson learned: do not sneak up on a dozing black horse in the dark.

He met Linnea Sharples during one of his production gigs. In 2007 they got married in a lovely ceremony on the Sunshine Coast. They had two children, Mattias and Isla. When the kids were young, they moved from a condo apartment to a larger, older home in North Vancouver, where the kids would have room to play and grow. He was happy to have a family and so very proud of his children. Sadly, his work as a “Genny Op” required incredibly long and brutal hours on-set for many movies and TV productions, so he missed out on a lot of his children’s daily lives.

Mike summed up what many expressed to me: “ I am grateful for Dave. He was an exciting, energetic, and driven guy that I was proud to call my friend.”

His friends from New Brunswick, BC, points around the globe and those he made through his work in the movie/tv production industry sent many condolences and tales of their adventures.

David’s life had great meaning to so many people. He was creative, intelligent, devoted to his friends and family, fiercely independent and wildly adventurous. He could light up a room with his smile. That is the man, the child I bore, that I want to remember and hope that others do too.

Celebrate that he lived and keep him in your memory, for that is where love lives.