Doing Great Work

At this stage of my life, funerals of various kinds are a regular event in contrast to weddings - though I did attend one on Saturday where the bride and groom made their way to a small church on Toronto Island from the mainland by canoe.

Walter Pitman OC Oont would have approved. Doing things a different way was something he excelled at.  He lived a full 89 years with many careers and achievements - secondary school teacher, first elected member of the New Democratic Party to the federal government, member of the provincial parliamentant so much more.  Electoral losses later never slowed him down.  He subsequently became Dean of Arts at Trent University, President of Ryerson Techological Institute, head of the Ontario Arts Council, head of the Ontario Instutute for Studies in Education - and in retirement the biographer of five outstanding Canadian musicians.  He and his wife Ida were inveterate arts attenders and I first met them as delegates of a major choral conference where they joined a massed choir for each of my eight years on the job. Incredibly modest about his own abilities, Walter always said to me, "You're doing great work!".

It was good to be cut down to size at his service of celebration.  We heard from a theatre director that he always said the same thing to him.  And we even heard in a moving tribute by his daughter that he said the same thing to his children.  But perhaps the best tribute of all came when she said of her parents, "Any time any of us came into the room - children, grandchildren and now the 10 great grandchildren - their eyes would light up.  A lovely memory of a man whose enthusiasm and support lit up so many of our eyes that evening.