Lynda Anne Coates

To Lynda Anne Coates, the entire world was a stage. An expressive, optimistic, and uninhibited individual, she was a performer in the theatre of life. To everyone around her, she seemed to be eternally happy, and she willingly shared that joy with anyone whose life she touched. For Lynda, bringing out the best in any situation was as easy as offering a smile, a witty remark or the twinkle of an eye. And with just those simple gestures, she would suddenly make yet another new friend. Lynda really mastered the art of living and had great fun in doing so.

      Lynda was born on February 18, 1945 at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Her parents were Frank and Erna Olheiser. Lynda, an only child, was raised in Kitchener, Ontario. Even as a child, Lynda had the ability to lift the spirits of all those around her. She was raised to be warm, caring and friendly. She couldn’t help but capture everyone’s attention because of her lively spirit and warm sense of humour.

     Always a good playmate, Lynda was easygoing and fun loving. She managed to lighten the mood wherever she was, even during family squabbles. She seemed to have a knack for bringing compromise and erasing tense situations. Due to a generous dose of common sense, Lynda managed to find a satisfying solution to basic problems.

      All of Lynda's playful good humour carried over into her childhood. She was possessed with an outgoing personality, a lively imagination and a mellowed enthusiasm for life that allowed her to be constantly on the go. As a result, Lynda experienced a rather active childhood, and this suited her very well. She was an avid roller-skater as a teenager and later became an excellent golfer. Lynda was a wonderful free spirit and left home for California at the age of 15, riding the bus all the way to Costa Mesa. She stayed there for more than a year before returning home to Canada.

      Ask anyone who knew her from school and they would tell you that Lynda was a class “cut-up.” She didn’t do it to be unkind or to garner all the attention. Rather, Lynda simply enjoyed others’ laughter and the sounds of her friends and acquaintances having a good time. It could be said that for Lynda, grades may not have been the most important thing to her, but she really did enjoy her school years. Experience was Lynda's best teacher. She enjoyed hands-on learning and applying the “practical” approach to knowledge, rather than getting caught up in “theory.” Lynda graduated from St. Mary's High School, Kitchener in 1962.

     Lynda never actually encountered a stranger in her dealings with people. She was drawn to individuals and crowds, using her gregarious, adaptable and outgoing personality to captivate her audience. This quality allowed Lynda to continually develop new relationships, and an ever-widening her circle of friends. Lynda utilized her interest in others as a great way to connect with them. While growing up, some of her best friends were Dee Rojo of California and the Wilson sisters of Kitchener. Later in life, Lynda had countless friends, especially Ruth McKenna, Elaine Voll and Hazel Ross. Lynda had a huge heart and would always go out of her way to help others. Lynda loved sharing life and having her home filled with people she knew.

      The gift of being emotionally expressive and outwardly affectionate made Lynda very easy to approach. On August 27, 1971, Lynda exchanged wedding vows with Alan John Coates and was married by a justice of the peace at the former Kitchener courthouse.

      Lynda was blessed with one son, Mark, who was adopted by Alan shortly after their marriage. Lynda had the ability to focus her attention on the present moment. Lynda's compassionate side prevented her from being a strict disciplinarian, and she could turn just about any situation into a playful, learning experience.

      At work, as in life, Lynda was a real “people person.” She had a very successful way of dealing effectively with others, and her enthusiasm and energy was often contagious. When dealing with various projects and problems, Lynda was an adaptable realist, using her common sense and trusting her experiences and impulses to uncover the correct answer. Lynda's talent for being a down to earth thinker allowed many around her to see Lynda as an excellent problem solver. Her primary occupation was reporter and editor at the Kitchener-Waterloo Record. She was employed for more than 40 years by the newspaper.

      Lynda enjoyed her leisure time by taking part in various hobbies. Her favorite pursuits were hosting parties, playing bridge, playing golf, and travelling extensively, especially to Las Vegas, California and the southwest coast of Florida.

      Lynda felt excited and challenged by sports. Lynda loved to participate and thoroughly enjoyed the competition and the pleasure of being around other people. Lynda relished the opportunities where she could make an impact, and she would often push herself to play above her abilities. A quick thinker who understood the basics, Lynda never seemed to get caught off guard, even when confronted with unexpected conflict. In high school, Lynda played field hockey and basketball. Recreational sports included golf and dance fitness. Lynda was also something of a sports fan and enjoyed watching her favorite events whenever she got the opportunity. Lynda loved to watch golf, espeically the Masters and the British Open.

      Naturally outgoing and generous, Lynda was regularly doing things for others. For her, the gift of giving to others was second nature. Though she never set out to gain individual recognition, Lynda was given accolades for her many and varied accomplishments throughout her life. Some of her most prestigious awards included a national feature writing award in the Canadian newspaper industry. She was also selected as employee of the year at the Kitchener-Waterloo Record, winning what was known as the Katie Award.

      Living life in the fast lane suited Lynda just fine. It is no surprise that she loved to travel and to visit new and different places. She was naturally curious about other parts of the world and loved the real life adventure that came from visiting them. She was impulsive and willing to try anything once. Favorite vacations included British Columbia, California, Las Vegas and Fort Myers Beach in Florida.

      Lynda was a lover of animals and cherished her pets, enjoying them almost as much as she enjoyed being around other people. Her two favourite cats were Howard and Abby. Lynda had Howard for only six years before she died of a stroke. Abby is now six years old.

      Lynda passed away on July 26, 2011 at Grand River Hospital in Kitchener. Lynda fought a courageous four-year battle with a rare bone-marrow-based disease called AL primary light-chain amyloidosis. She is survived by her husband Al and her son Mark. Services were held at St. Clement's Roman Catholic Church in Cambridge, Ontario. Lynda was cremated and her ashes scattered at her beloved beachfront condo at Fort Myers Beach in Florida.

      Lynda brought joy to all of those around her. She never had a mean bone in her body. She loved to have a good time and was an eternal optimist, always looking on the bright side of things. She loved to share her energy, wit, and her zest for all of her activities with her friends and family. Lynda Anne Coates lived life to its fullest and made everyone around her happier just for knowing her. She will be remembered with a smile and a tear for a happy life that was cut short too soon.

Recitation at Lyndy’s funeral by Hazel Ross.

She Is Gone

by David Harkins

You can shed tears that she is gone


or you can smile because she has lived. 



You can close your eyes and pray that she will come back


or you can open your eyes and see all she has left.



Your heart can be empty because you can't see her


or you can be full of the love you shared. 



You can turn your back on tomorrow and live yesterday


or you can be happy for tomorrow because of yesterday. 



You can remember her and only that she's gone


or you can cherish her memory and let it live on. 



You can cry and close your mind,
be empty and turn your back



or you can do what she would want:

Smile, open your eyes, love and go on.



Recitation at Lyndy’s funeral by Jane Coates.

If I Should Die

by an anonymous English poet

If I should die and leave you here awhile



If I should die and leave you here awhile


Be not like others, sore and undone


Who keep long vigils by the silent dust, and weep.



For my sake - turn again to life and smile


Nerving thy heart and trembling hand

To do something to comfort other hearts than thine.



Complete those dear unfinished tasks of mine


And I, perchance, may therein comfort you.

-- an anonymous English poet

Thoughts from Maura and Norman Coates on their treasured daughter-in-law Lynda Coates:

Norman and Maura first met Lyndy more than 40 years ago at the old Leisure Lodge dance hall in Riverside Park in Preston where their son Alan treated them to an evening of dancing with the Glen Miller Band.

The obvious friendship and attraction between Alan and Lyndy soon blossomed into marriage – and we gained our very first daughter to take her place in our family of four young men.

Lyndy brought an enormous joy to the family with her incredible good nature and high spirits – she loved to be among people where there was music, lots of laughter, good company and good conversation. Consequently, any excuse for a family get-together was quickly seized upon, aided an abetted over the years by the subsequent additions to the family of Daughters 2 and 3 – Jane and Janet.

Lyndy was a loving, loyal and attentive daughter to her own parents, Frank and Erna Olheiser as well as to the entire Coates family. Lyndy was a strong woman with a loving heart – she was admired, loved and respected not only by the entire Coates family but also by her enormous circle of loyal, faithful friends. It was clear to us, right from the very start, that Lyndy loved our family dearly – in many ways, it was her love and her thoughtfulness that did so much to hold the family tightly together over the years. There wasn’t anything she wouldn’t do to make a good thing even better.

We want Amanda – Lyndy’s niece, now 13 years old – to know how blessed Lyndy felt that Amanda enjoyed spending so much time with her when her health allowed it. Lyndy loved the “chick nights” at Al and Lyndy’s home when Amanda would come over for a sleepover, a bunch of snacks in front of the TV, and the great fun they had watching the lovely animated movie called “Up.”

Lyndy treasured the time she spent with Amanda – but her declining health soon got in the way of those wonderful weekend sleepovers.

We loved our Lyndy very deeply. We will miss her terribly. And we are heartbroken that she was taken from our family so soon.

Al’s funeral tribute to his loving wife Lyndy.

Ladies and gentlemen, family and dear friends: Thank you for coming today to honour the life of a most wonderful woman: Lynda Anne Coates. My name is Al Coates and I am Lynda's husband – I am the lucky man who has been blessed to have been loved by Lynda for the past 42 years.

I know what my Lyndy is doing this morning: She's up in heaven, having a cup of tea and playing bridge with St. Peter, and she's looking down on all of us gathered here at St. Clement's Church and she's telling St. Peter: “Oh, my gosh, I don’t believe it. Look at all the people who love me and who care so much about me."

St. Peter is sitting across from Lyndy and he's telling her that she really shouldn’t be surprised – he’s telling her that people love her so much because of the special way she lived her life. Lyndy loved people without either hesitation or reservation, she had a special warmth and a special joy in her heart; and she had a very special sense of peace and contentment.

Lynda Anne Coates loved the very act of living. There wasn't a day go by when she didn't go out of her way to help someone; there wasn't a day, in all the time that I have known and loved her, when she didn't have her special smile to warm my heart or someone else's heart; and there wasn't a single day in which she didn't do something – even a tiny something – to help make this world a better place.

I’ve never offered a eulogy before. I certainly didn't expect that my very first tribute would be offered on behalf of the woman I have loved so dearly. I thought, maybe in that crazy way that people think, that the real world would never intrude on our life together.

I thought, with both of us just recently retired, that we would do more and more of the things we loved – we would travel more, we would golf, we would go for long walks together, we would sit and read and relax, and we would just have fun with our loving family and friends.

But life sometimes has a way of not listening to your hopes and dreams. It appears as though God wanted Lyndy to be with him earlier than we might have imagined. It appears as though God has taken the woman that we all love so dearly to a better place, a place without pain and heartbreak and suffering.

Last Tuesday, on the final night of Lyndy’s life on Earth, she was somehow able to rally to offer us one final blessing. She told me as I held her fragile, weakened body in my arms: “Allie, I just want to be with God.” I told my Lyndy that God would be waiting for her with open, loving arms – and that Heaven would be an even more wonderful place with Lyndy Coates on God’s team.

If Lyndy were here today, speaking to us, she would say something like this: "To my dear family, to my dearest friends, to my son Mark, and to my darling Allie, thank you for being such an important part of my life. I love you; I am honoured to have known you all. Please remember me, but please don’t cry for me for I have been released to a better world. I am at rest, I am without pain, and I am again in the comfort of Heaven’s embrace. I am at peace and I am in the arms of my God.”

* * * * * * * * * *

With profound sorrow, heartbreak and an immeasurable sense of loss, our family announces the passing of Lynda

Anne Coates of Cambridge at Grand River Hospital. She is survived by Al, her devoted husband of nearly 40 years,

and their loving son, Mark, of Calgary. Lynda was predeceased by her parents, Frank and Erna Olheiser of Vernon,

B.C.

Lynda will be remembered with love and respect – and her memory forever cherished – by her Coates family "Ma and

Pa," Maura and Norman Coates of Cambridge. She will remain always in the hearts and souls of her immediate

extended family: David and Jane (Peek) Coates and their son Christopher of Toronto; Martyn and Janet (Butts) Coates

and their daughter Amanda of Cambridge; and Barry Coates of Cambridge. Lynda will also be remembered fondly by

the family of Lillian and the late Ralph Schumacher of Cambridge and by the family of the late Douglas and Ruth

McKenna, also of Cambridge, and by Mindy McKen and Charles Hain of Toronto.

Lynda will have a place forever in the hearts of a further extended family of friends, aunts, uncles, nephews, nieces

and cousins from across southern Ontario, the United States and Great Britain. She will be remembered with love and

deep affection by her wonderful band of "Lyndy's Angels," her very best friends, who helped her, and visited with

her (and brought her creamed soups!) and loved her so much over the final, difficult years of her life. Our family also

wishes to express heartfelt love and gratitude to John Leclair and Hazel Ross and their families for standing tall with

Lynda and walking with her at every step along the journey of the past few years.

Lynda was a near-lifelong resident of Waterloo Region and spent most of her working life as a reporter and editor

with what is now the Waterloo Region Record. She took genuine pride in her work and felt honoured to have won a

national feature-writing award in the late 1970s. In the latter years of her working life, Lynda became a member of

The Record's customer-service team and took great delight in considering herself as The Record's "official greeter" at

the newspaper's customer reception desk.

Prior to the onset of her health troubles, Lynda was an eager traveller, with Las Vegas, the California coast and Fort

Myers Beach in southwest Florida among her favourite destinations. As her travelling days became increasingly

restricted, Lynda would often joke that the recession in Vegas was due only partly to the 2008 global financial

meltdown; the primary reason for the troubles in Vegas, she would say, was because she could no longer visit there

to make her thrice-yearly contribution to the local economy.

Lynda was also a wonderful cook, hostess and party-giver and always looked forward to having the entire family

together for our frequent celebratory gatherings. Lynda was a crossword wizard and could dash off a New York

Times puzzle and a Globe and Mail cryptic puzzle in no time. And she was an ardent fan of the black-and-white

movies, especially the classic romantic comedies, of decades past.

Lynda was also a pretty decent bridge player, although she and her great friend and playing partner Carol Zettel

never really did master the bidding complexities of the Jacoby Transfer, much to the amusement of their respective

husbands, Al and Jack, who found particular delight and amusement in Carol and Lynda's stunning bidding

misadventures and botched slam contracts.

Lynda was also an accomplished golfer. She took up the game at the persistent, annoying urging of her husband and

quickly became part of a regular foursome with two since-departed wonderful friends, Cameron (Orkie) Krieg and

Jim Oberle. Early on, the boys, sensing an opportunity to fleece a golf novice, insisted on playing for money, but that

ploy worked only until Lynda became rather skilled at the game. She soon turned the tables and, rather

opportunistically, began to see golf as her part-time weekend job, a nice supplement to her writing and editing

income.

But most of all, and most importantly, Lynda was a loving, vibrant, and courageous woman, a devoted life partner, a

devoted mother and a cherished, faithful friend, someone who awoke every day with a smile on her face and joy in

her heart. Lynda always found the best in people; she always, without fail, put the needs of others before her own;

and she maintained her sunny, optimistic outlook even as she was confined to her bed over her final years, battling

the ravages of the prolonged, unrelenting series of illnesses and conditions working to betray her.

***

There is no single condition or cause that led to Lynda's passing; her frail body no longer had the strength to keep

fighting after a three-year struggle against a progression of conditions – notably primary amyloidosis, a rare, bonemarrow-

based disease – that ultimately left her bed-bound, immobile, profoundly anemic, and unable to fend for

herself or even breathe on her own behalf. Those conditions followed on the heels of earlier diagnoses, and

simultaneous medical treatment, of congestive heart failure, late-stage emphysema and late-stage chronic kidney

disease, in addition to recurrent battles with cancer.

Because of the breadth of Lynda's health difficulties, and the enormous challenge of reaching a full and

complete diagnosis, our family has a large number of health practitioners to thank for their care, their support and

their skills.

First of all, we wish to thank the entire staff at the Preston Medical Clinic, especially our caring family doctors

David Renner and Jill Hollowell, who worked tirelessly to serve as Lynda's "medical quarterbacks" to ensure that

Lynda received the best treatment possible. We offer our sincere thanks also to the secretarial, laboratory and

pharmacy staff at the clinic for their kind and considerate efforts over the past few years. We are grateful also for

the skills and dedication of the doctors and nursing staff in the emergency department and on the fourth and fifth

floors of Cambridge Memorial Hospital and on the fifth and sixth floors and in the Intensive Care Unit at Grand River

Hospital in Kitchener. We particularly want to acknowledge the remarkable, dedicated medical team of doctors,

nurses and technicians within Grand River's Intensive Care Unit. Thank you for being so gracious, kind and generous

with your time - and thank you again for giving Lynda such dedicated care and comfort over the final days of her

life. A special note of appreciation to Drs. Bill Plaxton and Paul Hosek who fought so hard on Lynda's behalf.

We wish also to thank Dr. Mark Tarnopolsky, neuro-muscular specialist at McMaster Hospital in Hamilton; oncology

specialist Dr. Jim Gowing of Cambridge; the oncology radiation staff at the Juravinski Centre in Hamilton and the

Balsillie Centre at Grand River Hospital; neurologist Dr. Dwight Stewart of Kitchener; and neurologists Dr. James

Sharpe, head of the neuro-opthamology clinic at Toronto Western Hospital, and Dr. Amir Dolatabadi, also of Toronto

Western. We are grateful also for the care and treatment offered by Dr. Hans Katzberg, of Toronto General Hospital;

endocrinologist Dr. Usman Chaudhry of Kitchener; respiratory specialist Dr. Christine Macie of Cambridge; gastroenterology

specialists Dr. Donna Kolyn of Cambridge and Dr. Lyle Bissonnette of Kitchener; Dr. Paul Strauss of

Cambridge; kidney specialists Dr. Shivinder Jolly and Dr. Tom Tsu Tung Liu of Kitchener; and cardiac specialists

Dr. Hugh Sullivan of Hamilton and Dr. Shekhar Pandey of Cambridge.

The therapists and case workers at the Kitchener and Cambridge offices of the Community Care Access Centre,

Paramed, Community Rehab and Care Partners were of enormous help, allowing Lynda to remain in the family

home throughout her difficulties and beyond the point where it might otherwise have been possible. We wish to

offer a particular note of gratitude to Marci Worrall and Tara Green of Paramed, who formed a special bond of love

and friendship with Lynda and who cared for her with such tenderness and devotion. We wish also to thank Karen

Kotanen, who managed Lynda's care under the auspices of the CCAC, for her kindness, understanding and

compassion in helping guide our family through the home-health-care process. We are grateful also to the U.S.

National Institute for Neurological Diseases and Stroke, based in Bethesda, Maryland, for the organization's support

and guidance.

***

In accord with Lynda's wishes, cremation has taken place and there will be no public visitation. A memorial mass

to honour and celebrate Lynda's life will be held Tuesday, August 2nd at 10 a.m. at St. Clement's Roman Catholic

Church on Duke Street in Cambridge (Preston). A reception will follow. In lieu of flowers or other considerations, our

family would ask that friends might wish to consider a donation to either Cambridge Memorial Hospital or Grand

River Hospital to assist those facilities as they strive to serve our communities with continuing quality care.

***

Goodbye, my darling Lyndy – and may God hold you lovingly and mercifully in the palm of His hand. Forever and a

day. Your Allie.