"Dad" (written and read at his funeral by his eldest daughter, Cate Koler)

I hadn't thought that I would have wanted to speak here today but on Thursday felt drawn to our old family home on Barrett Avenue and these words just seemed to come to me. I began to reflect on how Dad not only figuratively but literally put a roof over our heads. Mom had been telling me that day that when she was expecting me Dad would spend all day at his job and then he and his brothers-in-law and friends would go over in the evening to work on the house. 

As children we all felt the supportive walls of that home he built for us—we were protected and cared for so well. Dad also laid a strong foundation for how to live our lives: one of moral integrity and ethical living. He also modeled a love of nature, and respect for hard work but with ample time to play. 

There is a saying, “Give a child roots and wings.” After growing strong roots I took wing, like my parents had before me, and settled somewhere else. Sometimes I have felt that I live in an alternate reality so far from my past. But the foundation of our lives—the root cellar, if you will—was deep and strong and those roots pull me back every year or so to reconnect with my loving family, the family Dad established and nourished.

I can't speak of Dad without saying something about Mom for they are truly a pair. I will never forget the love, patience and tenderness Mom has given Dad through his whole life, especially during these past ten years while he suffered with Alzheimer's. It is really something to aspire to—that kind of love.

Dad, you were a very private man and wouldn't want a lot of praise or dramatic displays of grief. So I'll just tell you that we'll always remember you and our loving family home but will joyfully think of you now in your glorious new heavenly mansion.

As the family gathered with Dad over the last two weeks of his life, we exchanged many stories that formed the basis for the eulogy which I read at his funeral on July 29th.  Many have asked for a copy of the eulogy, so I have posted it here.

GORDON GEORGE LYNES
Gordon George Lynes: Father, grandfather, great grandfather, brother, brother in law, uncle, friend, instrument maker, soldier, driver, grocer, manager, piper, pipe major, gardener, woodworker, traveller, story teller, cub leader, scout leader, church elder  – but most of all, more than all those other titles - husband, soul mate and lifelong companion to our mother Isabel.
How many thousands of cups of tea did they share over their 75 year relationship.  Each one a moment to pause and connect, a cup of tea and a cookie, a moment of intimacy to talk about the day they had spent or were about to spend, to share their hopes and dreams, to solve problems, to laugh,  to plan, to remember.
Born 90 years ago in Kitchener, Dad was a child caught between two worlds:  the Canada that his father loved and the England that his mother yearned to return to.  Every two years his mother would take him and his sisters Kay and Virginia back and forth between the two countries until his father finally relented and moved the family permanently to London and then High Wycombe.  His formative childhood and teenage years were spent in England where he learned honour and duty and the love of history and tradition.   He contracted polio when he was 15 and the doctors told him he might never walk again.  Little did they know the force of will and sheer determination of young Gordon.  A picture of him at 16 shows a handsome well-dressed young man stepping out with a walking stick and a sure stride as he walks along a street in Brighton.  He would walk until he was in his late eighties.
At that tender age of 15, he met Isabel MacPherson.  On Dad's frequent visits to the MacPherson family, he was struck by the love, mutual support, care and happiness that were the defining characteristics of that family.  And this in spite of them having a father who had been blinded from a First World War injury and a financial situation that was at times precarious.  He determined that it was the MacPherson model that he wanted for his own children one day.  By the time she was 16, Mom had decided that she would marry Gordon.  
World War II broke out when Dad was 16 and he worked as an instrument maker for the war effort, served in the Home Guard and then volunteered for active service as soon as he was able.  He had wanted to join the navy, like his father before him, but failed the physical due to his polio.  He joined the Army Service Corps as a driver and mechanic, was part of the Normandy Invasion, spent the rest of the War in France, Belgium and Germany and was part of the liberation of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.  He then served two years after the War with the British occupation forces in Germany.
Mom and Dad were married in September 1945, after the end of the War, but two years before the end of his military service.  After a one week honeymoon, he was shipped back to Germany.  When we first heard that story, we all felt sorry for poor Mom, being left alone after so short a time of married life together.  She assured us that it was not all that bad, as every time Dad came home on leave, she had another honeymoon.
In 1947, Dad finished his military service and he and Mom resolved to return to Canada as soon as possible.  He had saved up enough money to afford a totally extravagant means of transportation at the time – they flew.  They started their new life in Galt, not more than 12 miles from where Dad was born.  
He had trouble finding a job as a mechanic.  An old friend told him that he was far too good looking to have his head stuck under a car hood all day and that he should go into retail.  Loblaws was hiring veterans and he went to check it out.  And so began a 40 year career in the grocery business.
It was in Galt that Dad began to fulfill his dream of creating a loving and secure family.  Start with the perfect wife who shared his vision, get a good job and work hard.  Put down some deep roots.  He built the family home at 15 Barrett Avenue with the help of his three brothers-in-law: Bill, Fred and Jim.  He and Mom lived in that house for 51 years.  We were always jealous of his stories of adventure back and forth across the Atlantic and his life in England, while we lived the same old, same old.  But he had always felt a bit of insecurity as he moved about and was forced to adapt to new schools and new friends, to say nothing of the difficulty of feeling like an outsider, even in his parents' homeland.  He would spare us that insecurity.   We were all much older before we realized what a gift he had given us, even if we all didn't stay in Galt.
His career had a meteoric start, being promoted from clerk to assistant manager to store manager in a few short years.  He was then transferred to bigger and bigger stores, new retail concepts, and dispatched as a fixer to problem stores.  But when he was offered the job of regional manager, he turned it down, as that job would involve more travel and nights away from home.  The lure of more responsibility and prestige and money was no match for the lure of family.
Work was always a means to an end rather than an end in itself.  Of course, self-respect demanded that one do one's best in a job, but when his work day was done, he owed his employer no further service and returned to his true interests - his family and his hobbies.  I recall that one day on his day off, his assistant manager phoned Dad at home to ask his advice on a problem that had arisen.  Dad simply said: “Are you the assistant manager?  Then manage! And don't ever phone me at home again.”  Would that more bosses knew how to delegate as well.  Dad would not have been a big fan of Blackberries and email.
As Dad was in the retail business, Saturday was a work day.  He had Wednesdays off.  So our weekend with him began on Saturday evening.  Our house never had any junk food in it - if you exclude a never-ending supply of chocolate chip cookies – but Saturday evening was an exception, when Dad would come home with a bag of “treats” – candies, chips, pop, nuts, and a brick of Neapolitan ice cream for Sunday dinner.  We would fall ravenously on this treasure trove and all would be gone before we went to bed. 
He also treasured our annual holidays - two weeks with pay.  Early on the first morning, we would all be loaded into the car and drive off to spend a holiday together – often at Wasaga Beach or some other beach.  Dad loved to swim, lie in the sun, build sand castles and take us for walks along the shore.  
He also loved his hobbies – woodworking, gardening and playing the pipes.  As a young man he had always enjoyed listening to Grandpa MacPherson play the pipes and when Grandpa died, Grandma MacPherson gave Dad his pipes.  He became a very good piper, played in several pipe bands, became pipe major of the Dunsdon Legion Band and even played at the Edinburgh Festival.  
One day he heard a report that for every year you worked past 60, you lost a couple of years of life expectancy.  He resolved to pack it in as soon as he was financially able and retired at the age of 63.  This gave him time to pursue hobbies and enjoy spending time with his dear wife.  He and Mom embarked on many long trips with their camper van.  Mom says it was one of the best times of their life together.
Dad taught by example as much as words.  There wasn't a sit down philosophy-of-life session with him, but from his example, his stories and his parental cautions and admonishments, I think I can boil it all down to the following three points:
1. One - Pride is a virtue, not a sin.  Pride in oneself, one's family, one's history and one's traditions.  Pride is not arrogance.  Pride goes hand in hand with honour and self-respect.
2. Two - As you can't have everything in this life, it is important to know what is important to you and do what you can to achieve whatever that is.  It requires effort and determination.  It requires making choices – giving up things that are less important to achieve what is important. 
3. (And in case you're not yet sure what was important to him)Three - Nothing is more important than family and the happiness and well-being of the members of one's family.

Almost 20 years ago, Dad had open heart surgery.  The doctor said that would give him another five years – maybe 10.  Mom put him on a cholesterol busting diet and he became passionate about exercise: walking, swimming and weight training.  And so the five extra years turned to 20.  Even in his last days, he could probably still have beat me at arm-wrestling.
Ten years ago, Dad started a slow downward progression as Alzheimer's disease gradually took its toll.  At the beginning, we began to learn more and more about his past as he reminisced about earlier and earlier times with a level of detail that was amazing.  After a few years, we knew all the stories and Mom could recite them by heart.  He would always try to engage us in conversation and seemed to have a set question for each of us, which might be asked several times as he would forget the answer or forget that he had asked the question.  What were our plans for our next holiday?  What's your favourite pie? When do you get to retire?  One exchange with his grandson Nathan went: “So, Nathan, what do you want to be when you grow up?”  “I don't know Grandpa.”  And two minutes later, “So Nathan, what do you want to be when you grow up?”  “I still don't know Grandpa.”   Alzheimer's forced us to grieve his passing in stages, and at each stage, we let a little piece of him go, all the while trying to remember the man we knew.  
Throughout it all, Mom was his steadfast caregiver, supporter, companion and love.  Every day she gave him all that she could and treasured whatever he was able to give back.
Two years ago, I was blessed to have a magic moment.  Dad, always the great story teller, had lost most of his ability to converse.  I had pushed him in his wheelchair into one of the sitting rooms at Riverbend and he started to talk.  A real conversation.  A two way conversation.  We joked and laughed.  Then, as suddenly as the moment came, it was gone.  But I'll always remember the gift of those marvellous 20 or 30 minutes.  It was the last real discussion we had.  Two years ago.  
Curiously to me, but perhaps intentionally to him, the conversation led us to discuss death and funerals.  He set out for me three last wishes. Here's what he told me he wanted:
1.  Don't go making a big elaborate funeral with long sorrowful eulogies.  Keep it short.  (I'm wrapping up, Dad, so bear with me.)
2. Don't go spending a fortune on the arrangements.  If they put George Gordon on the tombstone instead of Gordon George, just leave it.
3. When it's all over, I want you to get a good bottle of scotch, get the family together, raise your glasses, shout three cheers for Gordon and be done with it.
I have the scotch, Dad.  We'll do this today.  Rest in peace.

I have felt very honored to view the wide sweep of a life so lovingly outplayed over the decades! Clearly the photos depict how tenderly he loved his wife through the many adventures unfolded, as well as his family. Even though sorrowful over his passing, there is a jubilant depth to every memory, for he aspired to offer the very highest effort, and retained a great humor and love that transcended all strife!

Many thanks for sharing your father's life story.
With loving condolences,

Rebecca Barnowe

OBITUARY

Gordon George Lynes

August 24, 1923 – July 23, 2013

Coutts Funeral Home & Cremation Centre

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