The Voices of Our Children

 Tomorrow we will lay to rest one of the oldest men in what I consider to be my community. He was a man who spent his life working for his family and for the people whom he considered his friends and neighbours. He farmed, he made an astonishing number of gallons of maple syrup over many years, he built, he sat on committees and worked on roads, he taught and rescued and laughed. And danced. He raised three strong children who, in their turn, raised capable and generous children, his grandchildren who were his delight and his pride. And in his last year there were photos of great-grandchildren to comfort him. 

His was a life well lived, and as we send him to his rest, I cannot help but wonder what he would have believed to be his accomplishments, his summing up of what he did and felt and was. That he kept his land together and passed it on? He has a grandson making many litres of syrup in from bush he established. He has grandsons with fine building skills and a thriving business with children to follow them. He has a daughter who is as giving and glowing a person as anyone could imagine. He has granddaughters who are also skilled and loving. Grandsons and granddaughters, all fine people in whom he could take pride. He has a league of friends who will remember him with fondness and laughter. But I think that the children and grandchildren are what he would identify as his legacy. 

We live on in the voices of our children. There could be no finer summary of a life than that. 

But they do not need to be physical children. Any child who is helped or inspired can be part of a legacy. I have a daughter who, last winter, was teaching little girls in northern Pakistan how to get up on skates and push a hockey puck. To broaden the horizons of these girls and help to work things out so that they are allowed the exercise and fun is a legacy indeed and one
that will keep on giving. I have another daughter who teaches biology at a university. The students she inspires, coaches and supports and who go on to become informed and skilled adults are a fine gift to Canada. 

Thinking about this made me try to identify what I would single out as my legacy. It is not, proud as I am of them, my daughters and granddaughter. What I see is a plaque on a school in Ottawa with my name on it, among other names, commemorating its establishment as a French language public K to 8 (maternelle a niveau huit) school. I sat on the school board that set it up. I chaired the committee that recommended its beginning. It was a battle. The received wisdom at the time was that French Immersion was the way to go. But it happened and the children whose first language was French got a public school. 

It was an unforeseen bonus that my grandkid ended up going to that school and is now a fluently bilingual young adult, with the fine future that this skill makes easier. It is probably an unforeseen bonus for my neighbour that his grandchildren, spread from here to British Columbia, to California, are all thriving and strong. Thanks, although I guess you can’t hear me, Brien. You and your family are the core of what I think Canada should be and become.