WeemQuill

Number 3

David W. Leonard passed away on July 2^nd. He never married and had no children; his nieces and nephews are his next-of-kin. I am the oldest of the group, and the one he chose to oversee his estate. I wrote an obituary that accounts for his life as an accomplished historian and archivist. The Lieutenant Governor of Alberta inducted David into the Alberta Order of Excellence in 2007, and there is a nice retrospective of his life's work on their website.

I have spent the past week travelling to Edmonton and back, dealing with funeral homes, lawyers, bankers, and others to get the estate process underway, and talking with numerous people I don’t know about my uncle and his passing. It was a business week.

So today, at last, I’m grieving.

Dave was my mother’s little brother, eleven years her junior. My mom’s life reflected the times of her youth. She was born during the Great Depression and watched her father go to war. She saw him return a changed man. My mother lived through stressful times as her parents re-sorted their relationship and found new ways to make a life.

Dave, on the other hand, was a baby boomer. He was born after his soldier father returned home on furlough in 1945. While my mother’s youth was punctuated by hardship and family stress, Dave grew up during the 50s and 60s – a long march of prosperity. As a result, his life experience was much more like mine than his sister’s. He was thirteen years older than me and he was the big brother I never had.

Dave was an athletic boy and was a star baseball player in his hometown. He was also “bookish”, which put him at odds with his father, who earned a living in more physical pursuits: hunting and trapping, farming, carpentry, and for most of his life, as a mechanic. Dave went to university and became a historian. While he certainly made his parents proud, there was a distance and formality in the relationship between him and his father that was never bridged.

As I was growing up, Dave encouraged me to look beyond the immediate need to earn money. I should find something that interested me, then put my full effort into learning everything about that topic or field of study. No matter how small or obscure it might seem to others, he believed every topic deserved a passionate champion. His topic was Alberta’s Peace River Country. He once told me that his life’s goal was to learn everything that there was to know about that place. He wanted to be able to answer any question that anybody had, and he came as close to achieving that goal as any person could.

Most of his career was spent as a Government of Alberta (GoA) employee. Through Dave’s focus, perseverance, and the power of his intellect, the government adopted his research priorities, so he was able to spend most of his career working on projects of his own choosing. I also worked for the GoA, although in a very different capacity. But through Dave’s example and assistance, I learned very quickly how to use influence within the bureaucracy to achieve results. He showed me not only the importance of speaking truth to power, but also how to do it effectively.

When I was a new civil servant, Dave invited me into his circle of friends and colleagues within the public service. From the earliest part of my career, it seemed normal to have breakfast with a Deputy Minister, or to go for beer with an ADM after work. Thanks to Dave’s introductions, I became known as someone who could bring a fresh perspective to policy discussions and could be counted on to get things done. I was no different than many of my contemporaries, except I had the benefit of Dave’s backing, so much of my success can be credited to the good luck of having Dave as a supporter. Later in my career, it felt strange to have Dave ask for help to get a meeting with a particular minister or senior executive, but it also felt good to start repaying all he had done for me.

After he retired from government, Dave kept working, researching, and publishing. He lived his own advice: find an area that is your passion and pursue it relentlessly. He started a new tradition of holding a large family dinner every Christmas. I think he felt the need for family connections more acutely as he grew older. Not that he was ever unconnected, but because he had no spouse or children, I think he missed the support and companionship that immediate family members provide. So, it became a highly anticipated event each year, and often the only chance to regularly see all the cousins and their kids and grandkids in one place together. Although he is gone, we plan to hold at least one more Christmas dinner in his honour.

In recent years, Dave and I met for lunch regularly, talking about baseball, politics, what I’m reading, what he’s writing, who’s doing what in the family, and on and on. Dave has always been part of my life. Usually quietly lurking in the background out of sight, but I have always known he was there to step up if I needed him. That’s changed now. My world has gotten smaller.

This week I came across a rendition of Elton John and Bernie Taupin’s “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” done by Sara Bareilles that really moves me. It is dissonant and sweet and triumphant. More than the original, it captures the feeling of having to follow your own path. Sara Bareilles - Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (Live from Atlanta)

“Oh, I’ve finally decided my future lies | Beyond the yellow brick road”. Rest easy, David, my brother.