Our beloved Father, Raymond She-Ngam Lo passed away peacefully Saturday, October 14, 2023 after a miraculous twenty year long journey with Parkinson's Disease.

Dad was the third born, and eldest son to his Father, Lo Wen Cheung and Mother, Lo Sun Wai Chi in Shandong China in 1935. The village where Dad was born was rural and poor. Winters there were as cold as it would get in Canada but their home had no heat, indoor plumbing or running water. Dad would tell many stories of the hardship of his early years and the moral of every one of his hard luck stories would be how he found a way out of it. If there wasn't firewood nearby, he would go further to find some. If there wasn't any food, he'd recall meals that were all the more memorable because they were rare. If there wasn't any work, he'd go where there was work.

Finding a better life was the reason Dad decided to move his young family to Canada. Dad was a lifelong Liberal after he came to Canada because it was Pierre Trudeau who opened up Canada to immigrants like my Dad and he felt indebted to the Liberals for the rest of his life.

When Dad’s number was called to come to Canada in 1974, he had just gotten a prestigious middle management job in Hong Kong. Dad went from wearing a suit and tie to working in a small restaurant in Toronto's Chinatown. At this new job, being the low man on the totem pole meant he had to do everything from peeling shrimp, to washing dishes and being the janitor. There was no room for pride and Dad did whatever he had to do to put food on the table and a roof over our heads.

Rather than focusing on the hardship of our early days in Canada, and ever the optimist and glass is half full, Dad loved to tell the story of how after one of our first months in Canada, after paying rent and buying food and all the other expenses, he had $16 left over. Dad said he felt like he had hit the jackpot. He knew then he could build something in Canada and he did. For his whole working life, Dad never made any more than minimum wage yet he managed to pay off two homes and an apartment. He put three kids through college and university. Due to Dad's discipline and sound financial management, our parents were able to live it up for over 20 years after retirement, travelling with friends, seeing the world, karaoke every day, line dancing, choir practice just to name a few of their many hobbies.

When Dad was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease, he took the news with grace and acceptance. He was never bitter, never complained or asked why him? He was not a wallower or someone who pitied himself. He got on with living with Parkinson's and managing his quality of life for as long as he could. Dad was an early pioneer of some of the best Parkinson’s treatments today. He lived longer than his doctors had given him and his quality of life was good right up to the end. A week before Dad passed he ate Sunday night dinner with us.

A final act of love between my Mom and Dad was despite his own declining health, he could not leave my Mom. No one would have predicted that our Mother would pass before he did. But when Mom passed on August 31 this year, Dad followed her peacefully just a month and a half later. Theirs was really a true love story. He kept his promise to love and cherish her until she passed and then he went peacefully after her.

A Celebration of Dad’s life will be held on Saturday, November 4, 2023 at 1:30pm at Elgin Mills Funeral Centre, 1591 Elgin Mills Road East, Richmond Hill, ON L4S 1M9. In lieu of flowers, please consider donating to the Movement Disorders Clinic at Toronto Western Hospital or www.michaeljfox.org