A long time ago Priya, five months pregnant with our first son Lief, dragged me down to her parent’s house in Thornhill so I could meet her father for the first time. I’d already met her mother, Marjorie, who had been warm and kind, but this didn’t allay the trepidation I felt about meeting her father. Ken greeted us at the door, extended his hand to me and looked up: “You are tall,” he said. Later that evening, when he and I sat together in the living room, he asked the inevitable questions about my future plans, and I muttered something about my minimum wage job at the time, made a vague reference to being a writer, and mentioned how I was thinking about going back to school.
I can still see Ken’s arched eyebrow, and the gears turning in his eyes about what kind of ‘project’ this young man was going to present to him. He could have been cynical and rejecting. Instead, not long after that first visit, he insisted on taking me to a shoe store to get shoes to better fit my big feet, and on yet another visit, when I was in pain, he used his connections so I could have a root canal done that same day - the list of his kind gestures goes on.
Over the years he’d tell me stories about his childhood, or about his exploits at the Worker’s Compensation Board, and as he grew older the stories became more repetitive. I think Priya and Marjorie thought I was being stoical, listening to the same old stories for so long, but I for the most part enjoyed the interaction and am aware that he became a father figure to me, a man who had his foibles and biases just like all of us, but a man who, nevertheless, was always concerned about our welfare and who acted honourably and generously.
Life continues on in both an emotional and physical sense. Ken and Marjorie created Priya, who has been the most important gift in my life, and in turn it’s enabled me to help create (with a certain amount of enjoyment, I must admit) two sons who I love very much, and who truly make me very proud, and now Priya and I have a wonderful daughter-in-law, Susan Cooper, and a two year old grandson, Oscar, who is utterly beautiful and who, perhaps one day, will patiently sit listening to his grandfather’s repetitive stories.
Thank you Ken for all the good you’ve brought to this world. Every once in a while, I promise to continue sitting with you and enjoying the pleasure of your company.