Mrs. Joan Agatha Sue-a-Quan

Peacefully at home on Thursday, February 7, 2013 at 4:57pm, 2 days after her 87th birthday. Loving mother of Dona, Allison and Leah. Cherished granny of Matthew, Daniel and Luke. Joan will be sadly missed and fondly remembered by her family and friends.

Friends may visit Jerrett Funeral Home, 6191 Yonge Street (2 lights south of Steeles, on the east side) on Wednesday, February 13, 2013 from 6:00pm to 9:00pm. A funeral mass will be held on Thursday, February 14, 2013, 10:00am at St. Luke Catholic Church, 39 Green Lane, Thornhill.

In lieu of flowers, donations to the Canadian Cancer Society would be appreciated by the family.

Here is Joan's eldest grandson. Matt McGregor's Eulogy was delivered at the Funeral Mass on Thursday, February 14th, 2013

Thank you all for coming to celebrate the life of Joan, to mourn her passing, and remember the example she set. My name is Matt, and Joan was my grandmother, although I always knew her as Granny. It is that name that I will always remember her by. I will start by saying her proudest accomplishments were her children, whom she loved with all of her being. She had three daughters: Dona, Allison, and Leah, and three grandsons: myself, my brother Daniel, and my cousin Luke. She always referred to us as her ‘three handsome grandsons’. I always insisted she only had one but she never agreed.

Being the social person she was she would have loved that all of you came together to say goodbye one last time. The life she lived was one of her own making, and what marks her now in my eyes is her youthful spirit and vitality, things she kept right up until the end.

My Granny was born February 5th, 1926 in Trinidad, the second of ten children born to Louis Jay and Ellen Williams. From what I’ve heard she was never the most dedicated student and she left school around fifteen to work in the offices of Shell Oil in Trinidad.

Granny was definitely a woman with a sense of adventure and knew she wanted to see the world in her lifetime. When she was eighteen she begged her father to let her go to New York to study at the Hollywood School of Beauty. It was manipulation at its best - she had no real interest in hairdressing. Well he said yes and Granny got to spend a year living in New York seeing what life was like away from the island she called home.

She came home and being the business-minded woman that she was, opened a hair salon with a friend of hers. She went on to work for the Canadian Bank of Commerce in Trinidad, eventually rising as high as Current Accounts Manager, not bad for a high-school dropout and a woman working in the 1950s. She also took a hand in the family business started by her father.

She would meet Donald Sue-a-Quan, and the two were married. With her entrepreneurial spirit and his creativity the two would collaborate on a number of projects – a neon lighting business, various real estate developments, and the three daughters they would have together.

Despite not having finished formal schooling herself, Granny never scoffed at the value of education, ensuring her daughters received the best schooling possible whether it was at home in Trinidad or at boarding school in Canada. It is telling that all three of her daughters found their way to becoming teachers.

After Donald’s death at age 56, Granny did not resign herself to a life of sadness. Instead, retiring two years later at the age of 51, she let her independence and sense of adventure take over once again, just as it did in her teenage years. She traveled the world, living in Paris for six months before joining her daughters in Canada. She married and divorced and traded in real estate and lived much as she always had – happy, fulfilled, active, and congenial.

By the time I came along Granny was firmly established here in Canada and has always been a constant presence in my life. She was always committed to us as a family even through difficult times, and managed to take a great hand in raising my brother and I while maintaining all of the qualities that made her who she was – a well-loved, sociable, dynamic woman who lived life according to her own set of standards.

She was a woman who never let age get in her way. She took great care of her body, dutifully going to her pool to swim every morning right up until her diagnosis seven months ago, yet was unafraid to enjoy herself and indulge when in the company of loved ones. She was an avid hostess and took joy in having family and friends over for meals and parties that would go from early afternoon until night time. Granny was a fun-loving woman who looked forward to her casino outings, her weekly card games with friends, and all social occasions.

The other side to her sociability was her well-developed independence, which she tenaciously held to until the very last. I remember two or three years ago when her driver’s license was finally taken away she asked me to take her to the provincial office to see if it could be reinstated. When I picked her up she insisted I not tell my mom knowing she wouldn’t approve, and when we arrived she refused to allow me to help her out of the car or to open the door to the office for her – she didn’t want them to see that she needed anyone for anything. She didn’t end up getting the license back, and when she got back into the car she was a little deflated – no doubt thinking about the limits not being able to drive a car would put on her. It didn’t last very long though, she wasn’t a woman given to ill moods – or at least showing them to the people she loved. Soon enough she was back in her usual high spirits, always extremely grateful for what she had and always practical to a fault.

It’s impossible to describe the true scope of the woman in a few lines of speech, and it will be all of your own memories of her that you will take from. However you knew her, it is important to learn from her example – for she really was an example: an example of how to strike out on one’s own, an example of how to love as many people as possible in the course of one’s lifetime, an example of how to live. Ultimately, she also became an example of how to die, doing so peacefully last Thursday, two days after celebrating her 87th birthday, surrounded by the ones she loved and who loved her back.

My Granny Joan was many things: dynamic, progressive, generous, respectful, disciplined, independent, sociable, fun-loving, well-liked, committed to her family – but I think what struck me most about her through the years was her strength. Whenever somebody says the words ‘strong woman’ – this is who I will think of. Thank you Granny, thank you for all you’ve done for us over the years, and thank you for bringing us all together one last time.

Eulogies delivered at the reception, Thursday, February 14th 2013

“Joanie who liked to be called Joan”

Eulogy by Leah Sue-a-Quan, Joan’s youngest daughter

She was a no nonsense woman, blunt at times.

And if you needed practical advice, she would always be ready to give you sound words of wisdom

Sometimes that was a hard thing to live up to because some of us just don’t see things so cut and dried

I remember the time when she was checking out what I was going to wear for a convocation ceremony

She was absolutely stunned and highly annoyed that no, I did not know exactly what I was going to wear, and truthfully, had given it little thought. And so we trundled off to Winners to find a $24.99 acceptable deal; I breathed a sigh of relief that I would not have to bear the brunt of her disgruntledness anymore that day!

These things bothered Joan, because essentially Joan was a very organized person who planned exactly what she wanted to do, who didn’t keep people waiting, and who took pride in being on time and READY for everything.

While some of us would be wilting with exhaustion as her mind fired through this business and that business, we would secretly be thinking, “How does she do it?”

Some of her sisters talk about how Joanie had this cutting edge from the time she was 16 years when she landed her first job. Close friends like Auntie Kimmy Sellier were rather taken aback at how she would breeze through job interviews.

Her very closest friend Olga, my dear Auntie Olga, who will miss her yearly visit, was often humoured by the way my mum would plan things to a T, but also admired her immense courage and ability to deal with practical affairs.

Joan loved to travel. She thrived on the excitement of life in foreign countries. She often reminisced on her experience in France, learning to speak a bit of French and, from all reports, she did quite well. Mum would regularly come out to BC, sometimes in the summer, sometimes in the winter. For us, this was important because it was a time for Luke to get to know his granny and we have few relatives out there.

Addendum: Here is an anecdote of Joan's time in France. There is a photo taken of Joan, one of her sisters and her mother on a boat. Her sister Fungheung recalls: "This was in the fall of 1982. It was a cruiser, so that cooking and driving was done from within, and Joan was often the driver, even with no hands. We were on the Canal Lateral de la Loire. The party consisted of Cedric and 4 Chinese women: Joan, two of her sisters [Fungheung and Funglan] and her mother [Ellen]. It was this trip that motivated her to learn to speak French as she could see that with a little of the language we were able to eat in simple but good restaurants and not have to depend on 4 star hotels and their English speaking employees. After some months of French study in Toronto and in Trinidad she undertook a course in Paris at the Alliance Francaise, a stint, I believe of 6 months, followed by one month in Mortagne-au-Perche, lodging with Mme. Duhil, who spoke absolutely no English, and eating with Jean-Claude and Elisabeth Hameau who owned the charcuterie where I spent 3 months learning about cooking." This is one memory of Joan's adventurous spirit.

Eulogy by Luke Nicholls, Joan’s youngest grandson,

Luke has sent a message to share with you today.

He said his last goodbye to her in August.

A death is always a sad event. Unfortunately death is an inevitable event for all of us. When someone dies, the question at large is how those left behind react and cope with that death. I, like all of you here today, are very saddened by the passing of my grandmother, Joan. However, I think we can take a great deal of comfort from the circumstances surrounding her death. Joan lived a long and prosperous life. She had a loving family and many friends who cared a great deal for her. She died surrounded by people who loved her and cared for her. She died peacefully in her sleep without struggle, without pain, and that is the death she deserved after battling cancer for the better part of a year. Although the knowledge that I will never see my grandmother again pains me, I take comfort knowing she lived a wonderful life till the very end.

I will always remember my grandmother for spoiling me endlessly, sometimes deservedly, sometimes not. Although my parents would never condone her doing this, I always knew she did it out of pure love. I was glad to have been able to visit her when she was lucid, and able to have the chance to reminisce with her. Making the trip to say goodbye to her when she was still the intelligent loving woman I knew was the best decision I have ever made.

Dona Sue-a-Quan, Joan’s eldest daughter, who could not be with us today, has sent a poem to share.

The prophet said to Almitra, the seeress (female prophet):

“You would know the secret of death. But how shall you find it unless you seek it in the heath of life? The owl whose night-bound eyes are blind unto the day cannot unveil the mystery of light. If you would indeed behold the spirit of death, open your heart wide unto the body of life. For life and death are one, even as the river and sea are one.

In the depth of your hopes and desires lies your silent knowledge of the beyond; and like seeds dreaming beneath the snow your heart dreams of spring. Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.

Your fear of death is but the trembling of the shepherd when he stands before the king whose hand is to be laid upon him in honor. Is the shepherd not joyful beneath his trembling, that he shall wear the mark of the king? Yet is he not more mindful of his trembling?

For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun? And what is it to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?

Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing. And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb. And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.

From The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran

[Turkish American Christian poet (1883-1931)]

Thank you mum, thank you granny, thank you Joan, for teaching us with all your love, the wisdom of common sense and perseverance.

Allison McGregor, Joan's second daughter, also gave an impromptu eulogy reflecting upon her experiences and special times during the several months she undertook to care for our mother.

Hugh Jay Williams, Joan's nephew, reflected upon his aunt's support when he first moved to Canada.

Dona, Allison, Leah, Matthew, Daniel and Luke give special thanks to two caregivers, Yvonne and Chona, who taught us a lot, and to Ernesta who prepared delicious food for Joan's Celebration Reception. We also thank all family members, including sisters, brothers, nieces and nephews, our friends and Joan's friends for their support since last July. To all those who flew across continents or cross country to spend time with Joan, we know that she enjoyed your company. Every face-to-face, telephone and Skype conversation, email, visit, gift of delicious food were small gestures of care and love which we know made every difference to Joan's last journey.