We are heartbroken to announce the sudden death of husband, father, and educator, Bruce Flattery.
He is survived by his wife, Lauren Mckim Flattery and his daughters (with Sue Gordon) Laurie, Kelly, Shannon (Tim Mason), and Megan (with Lauren); his grandchildren Emil, Cheyenne, Delphine and Lucien.
He is pre-deceased by his parents, Winfield (Babe) Flattery and Iola Flattery, née Burt.

Bruce is also survived by his sister Amejo Wyn Amyot [Phyliss] and his brother Tom Flattery (Molly).

Bruce was born in Salamanca, NY and raised in Little Valley, NY. He graduated from high school there and received his undergraduate degree from Georgetown University. He then moved, with his young family, to Canada, eventually completing a Ph.D. at the University of Toronto.

He began teaching in the English Department at York University in 1968. He became an Associate Professor, retiring from York in 2008, although he continued to teach part-time until 2011.

As well as teaching at York, Bruce took leaves to teach in China. His first position was in the Foreign Languages and Literature Department Graduate School at Nanjing Daxue [University] 1981-1984 where he was a Fulbright Scholar. He was fascinated by Chinese history, philosophy, and literature as well as the daily lives of his friends, students and colleagues in China at that time. Later he went on to make several trips to teach and train teachers all around the country. Lauren and Megan were able to join him for much of this time. He continued to correspond with former students, many of whom went on to successful careers.

Parallel to his academic career, Bruce spent 50 years studying and practicing Scientology. Of all his participation in and contributions to Scientology, he was particularly interested in training and practicing as a Scientology auditor (pastoral counsellor). He was a valued staff member at the Churches of Scientology in Toronto and Cambridge until the end of his life.

Above all, Bruce was a kind man. He was dedicated to helping others. When he took responsibility for helping a person, he was all in, even if that person was halfway across the planet. There were many such people over the course of his life. In the words of one of his daughters, “he never stopped learning, and never stopped working to make the world a better place.”

He cared deeply about the environment.

As a resident of the City of Pickering, he became active in the cause of preserving farmland in the GTA. He was a supporter of the Duffin-Rouge Agricultural Preserve (adjacent to the Rouge National Urban Park) and the Ontario Farmlands Trust.

He loved poetry, John Keats’ in particular and Shakespeare, literature, and good writing of all kinds. He loved music: Mozart, Wagner, The Moody Blues, The Beatles, Leonard Cohen, these later days, especially Leonard Cohen.

He was endlessly curious, watching lectures and reading about social issues, politics, history and quantum physics. He shared all this with enthusiasm. He was intensely interested in what the people around him were doing and thinking. Bruce also had a silly sense of humour and used it to lighten the mood. Almost any conversation with him included laughter.

By Bruce's wish, there will be no funeral. If you feel moved to honour his memory we know he would have appreciated a donation to one of the causes near to his heart. He worked tirelessly for many years to protect green space in the GTA, and in later years was passionate about peace activism. He spent much of his time in the service of others and expanding his knowledge of the world around him. Any act of kindness or time spent learning about social justice or the world around us would also be acts of remembrance he would appreciate.

Ode to a Nightingale by John Keats

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But being too happy in thine happiness,—
That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.

O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been
Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country green,
Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!
O for a beaker full of the warm South,
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stained mouth;
That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
And with thee fade away into the forest dim:

Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
What thou among the leaves hast never known,
The weariness, the fever, and the fret
Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,
Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
And leaden-eyed despairs,
Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.

Away! away! for I will fly to thee,
Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,
But on the viewless wings of Poesy,
Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:
Already with thee! tender is the night,
And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,
Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays;
But here there is no light,
Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown
Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.

I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,
Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,
But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet
Wherewith the seasonable month endows
The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;
White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;
Fast fading violets cover'd up in leaves;
And mid-May's eldest child,
The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,
The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.

Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme,
To take into the air my quiet breath;
Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
To cease upon the midnight with no pain,
While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
In such an ecstasy!
Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain—
To thy high requiem become a sod.

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
The same that oft-times hath
Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.

Forlorn! the very word is like a bell
To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well
As she is fam'd to do, deceiving elf.
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep
In the next valley-glades:
Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
Fled is that music:—Do I wake or sleep?