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A MEMORIAL SPEECH FOR AMELIA, APRIL 13, 2008 Amelia was two when I met her for the
first time in January 1983. I was 30. We all joked that I was the third grand-father,
after Alan, who was number 1, and Robin, who was number two. Being number
three absolved me of any serious responsibility; I was free to enjoy her as
the sunny, funny, good-natured kid she was. What I actually
knew about being a grand-father at that point in my life might have filled a
termite’s thimble. Fortunately, for 25 years, Amelia was a superb
teacher. She was always
so easy to be around. When she was little, before we moved to When Amelia was
a bit older, in the 1990s, she’d come to Vancouver for visits, always
eager to travel somewhere with us to watch whales, eat blue cheese
hamburgers, go roller blading along the seawall,
ride a ferry to the islands, go sailing in Howe Sound in my sailboat. She
always said “yes”, she always made the best of things,
she always pursued life with enthusiasm and joy. But it wasn’t
until I made the decision to donate my kidney last year that I really got to
know Amelia as an adult, and began to realize what a very brave person she
was. We spent lots
of time together. Sadly, it was usually in the hospital … at first, for
all the testing that had to be done. And then after the operation, all
through last fall, when she was in and out of the hospital almost every week.
I’d jump on the subway after work to see her. She was amazing! She put
up with so much – pain and discomfort, uncertainty, fear, endless
tests, endless pills. She never complained, she never raged at the universe
the way I would have. The only time I
saw her cry in the last year was the day in emergency when she was kicked out
her room and forced to lie on a guerney in the hall
all day. She held my hand and cried and said all she wanted was to go home,
please. Usually when I
visited we talked about stuff … mostly I talked and she listened. What
did I talk about? Anything and everything. Eric Clapton and the blues scale,
movies I’d seen, books I’d read, well-worn stories about my past …
painting houses in It’s easy
enough to say you love someone in your family. What’s rarer is to say
you honestly like them. I liked Amelia. I’ve never met anyone as
appreciative and thoughtful. She thanked me so many times for the kidney I
had to tell her to stop. When I started painting the apartment she was
planning to move into this month, she emailed me at least twice telling me
how grateful she was. People tell me
I’m a hero for donating the kidney. Nah. I’m no hero. I was the
right person in the right place at the right time doing the right thing. Amelia
was the true hero, for putting up with so much, and never losing hope. She
was always hoping for a happy ending, I think, like her favourite
movie. When Deborah,
the Globe photographer, told us the editors wanted an “emotional”
photo that illustrated our relationship, we both kinda
groaned. “We’re not that kind of family,” she said, which
was true. Amelia usually spoke the truth. We posed in her living room on the
second floor at Death is a
horrible creature. He’s immoveable, implacable, irrevocable.
Also deaf, dumb and blind. You can’t talk to
him or reason with him. Like the wizard hiding behind a screen, he’s a
coward who refuses to show his face and account for his actions. Amelia, on
the other hand, had the three qualities lacking in the Tin Man, the Lion and
the Scarecrow – she had brains, she had a good heart, and she had
tremendous courage. Maybe that’s why she loved that movie so much …
it was telling her something about herself. Amelia and Stephen
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