Hereafter

 

My brother-in-law died early in the morning of December 26^th of the effects of a glioblastoma. If he had lived two more days, he would have been sixty -eight. Too young to go.

In my mind, Johnny will always be the little brother. He was a small boy,

nine years old, when JG and I were married and still a young boy, to my eyes, when we had our children. As a teenager, he lived with us for part of a year when our girls were preschoolers, and has, to an extent, spent a lot of time and holidays with us through the years. An only child, myself, I always was thrilled to have him and Anne, the sister in the family, as accrued siblings. I force fed him through some of his Grade 9 final exams, insisted he learn to touch type, ragged him about our common lack of basic arithmetical skills, enjoyed our common interests in swimming and diving, argued with him, endlessly, about politics. Loved him. Even when he was at his most exasperating, he was lovable.

And, oh my, could he be exasperating. He did not have opinions – he had Opinions. Blazingly intelligent himself, and, as he described himself, an autodidact, he expected equal ability in public office and public service. When faced with what I would interpret as stupidity or carelessness, he often classified an action (or lack of action) as deliberate and culpable. ‘The whole council is corrupt’, he would fume. ‘They are in it for what they can get.’ he would mutter about just about any politician going. Well, he liked Trump. We did argue. Long into the night on occasion. And agreed to disagree.

What impressed me the most about this guy, among many impressive actions and accomplishments, was not the skills he taught himself, many as those were, but rather his innate kindness. He was not afraid to tackle anything. Once when, as a fifteen-year-old he was babysitting our toddler daughters, one of them woke up and was sick. I got a phone call from him and he told me about the accident, that he had cleaned the kid, put her back to sleep and put the dirty linen in water in the basement sink. What the call was to ask was if there was anything else he should have done. He was a teenaged boy. And he had calmly and thoroughly done an adult job.

As an adult, this caring behaviour became one of his signatures. Over the years John cared for his parents as they aged and until they died, and for a childless cousin, also until she died. He was a good companion to his brother-in-law and a concerned and caring brother to his sister. In her final illness, he provided support and companionship to her daughters. He supported his mother as she looked after her sisters-in-law, and found tasks and supporting roles for some of his cousins. And that was just family. He always maintained the friendships established in school days and through his many activities. When he and his brother were planning for his death, those friends were the people he thought of.

His friends thought a lot of him. It was those friends who cared for him in his last illness. They drove him to appointments, brought him food and necessities, sat with him, nursed and supported him. His best friend was with him in his last hours and he died in her arms. A former girlfriend spent countless hours supporting him. His friends were his family, in truth, as we live far away. Yes, his brother has the task of clearing up the residue of his life, but his friendships are his testimonial.

Did I mention that he could be a pain, at times? After his mother needed nursing home care, John lived alone in and had the run of the family home. He established, on top of my mother-in-law’s dining room table, still covered with her cherished crochet lace tablecloth, an electronics working station, piled high with components and, at one point, three disembowelled radios. His kitchen table was little better. When we visited, we ate out. He was a packrat, son of a packrat, brother of another. And most of what he and his father had gathered over long years was stored in the basement. Along with the cat’s litter box, access by the cat to this last having been achieved by cutting a small round hole into the basement door. What is not in the basement is probably in the garage, waiting to be sorted. Gilmours – collectors and a collective pain, actually.

John collected skills as well as stuff. He was an accomplished cold and tropical open water diver. He had a pilot’s licence for small planes. He was a certified auto mechanic. He was a designer, teacher and repair expert on some types of computers, all skills that he taught himself. He was a long-time HAM (VE3NKH) radio operator. He played guitar. He ran and rode, both bicycle and motorcycle, the latter on several cross-continent trips. He was skilled at landscape maintenance and had a stash of cash that he had been paid for doing so. He could weld, estimate and build. He was a top-notch amateur photographer, both regular and underwater. Among the skills he taught himself I can identify brokerage, typing, marksmanship and gun handling, cooking … I am sure only that I have missed some. The tag name JOAT? Jack of All Trades. That was John.

He should have died hereafter. In Macbeth, the quote goes “She should have died hereafter; 

There would have been a time for such a word.” It was not John’s time. He should have had at least another decade or two to practice his skills, hang with his friends, cook a beef roast, play his guitar, bomb up here on his bike.  His father lived past his 90^th birthday. His brother is 82 and still a vital, active man. The tumour diagnosis was made in September. John opted to have it treated, and endured the effects of the treatment until it was obvious that it was not doing enough good. He struggled with the effects of the tumour itself, but even as his illness increased, he could still laugh. He was himself for as long as he could be and then, mercifully, he was gone.

Leaving us with loss. That he left a lot of stuff to disperse is maybe not a bad thing as it provides something to do. I think that a lot of the activities that we do around the death of someone we loved or admired is a displacement of the pain. That is what writing this has been for me. Once I stop writing, once I have, in effect, said the word, time will start again. Without him.

I am putting in a bit of a photo gallery, as time permits and I find the photos.

This is a family shot taken about 1963, at a guess.

From the left, Grandmother Annie Murgatroyd, Jim (Red) Gilmour, father, John in front, left, Anne Hamer, sister, middle rear, her daughter Lori in front, right of John, George Hamer, right rear, Dorothy and Georgia Hamer, front right, Dorothy holding racket down, Georgie holding racket sideways.

This is John with his brother, also Jim Gilmour (the family distinguished by calling this one Jimmy. Year probably 1960- Jim is wearing a Science Faculty jacket from Queen's University and sporting a first year beard. Pity about the colour - the beard was bright red

Here is a young John, probably in his early twenties, helping his brother cut a dead tree - and preventing his nieces from getting under it until it was down.

Around the same time, playing baseball with Jim and the girls.

John and his father often came up from Fort Erie to our land in Lanark to help with the job of getting in the sugar wood. Here are two photos of  firewood working -one of setting the splitter and one of splitting.

Here he is unloading a tractor he helped his brother buy from the float he and a friend brought it in on.

Ans here is another young John, helping his brother construct a garage. It is the window of this building whose frame calculations cost John and Mary a long and painful exercise in arithmetic.

I do not seem to see many photos of older John. I am sure they are in my boxes and boxes of photos, somewhere. 

I found this one of John holding the mother of the baby in the next photo down.

There is one that I really love, however. It is John holding his great niece as a small baby. This is the John that we knew lately. The baby he is holding is now a much changed 18 year old university student, however.

And to finish off for now, this is a middle aged John with his sister - I don't know if this was a serious discussion or if they were both contemplating the dog's state of relaxation.

I am finishing off with a selection of John in his latest iteration - but always himself.

That baby two photos up? That's her in the white sweater. Her father to her left, John's niece, Wendy in the centre with her dog, Shammy, and John in our bush in Lanark.

Last Christmas, dessert time. 

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