News breaking of James Earl Jones’ passing yesterday hit hard. Although best known as the voice behind Darth Vader in Star Wars, my heart lands on a different iconic scene from a very different movie.
I’m suddenly at Eaton Centre, walking into the empty air conditioned theatre on a hot summer weekday afternoon with my brother, Dad and I, popcorn in hand. I remember walking out completely transformed and utterly mesmerized. Dad intuitively knew this one would be good for Scott and I to see in person, together. He always fed us the highest quality movies for to feed the soul. Oh, the many times Scott and I stepped into our small hobby garden’s row of corn afterward, just hoping…
Even to this day, faced with a field of corn, I will still try, the dream ignited within is still that tangible – just as I still occasionally close my eyes and reach toward the back of my closet (wardrobe), desperately hoping for my hand not to hit drywall…
Dad’s movie description: “1989. Field of Dreams, a gem about the American Dream as seen through baseball story; Costner at his best, Lancaster and Jones even stronger; fanciful scenes, remarkable moments; maybe the best-ever film about dreams and possibilities coming true”.
The scene that imprinted itself on my heart forever? It is likely not the obvious choice. It is the moment after the baseball game Ray and James Earl Jones’ character Terence Mann goes to. Terence does not let on he’s actually heard the voice at the game, urging the quest forth, and Ray drops him off at home. The van does a U turn – and the headlights suddenly fall on James Earl Jones standing in the middle of the road. Just thinking of the scene gives me chills. That spinning of the van… it’s fate in the balance… the dice are rolling… that hovering between belief and non belief. Choice and self actualization vs surrender. Following your heart vs being safe. Hope vs defeat. All the core concepts Dad ingrained within my being, as he showed me how to live my life.
This past winter, Dad passed along an unexpected treasure during a brief meeting – a familiar, well-worn, well-loved brown baseball glove. I’d learned to catch and throw with it with Dad. I had used it in my youth for baseball games in elementary school. It still smelled the same – like well aged-leather and sweat – and immediately invoked that anticipation you feel when the air is filled with potential and you’re ready for the next play. I always intuitively knew it was old, but I had no idea just how old. He received it in grade 3-4 and used first on grade 5-6 school teams, playing second base. After he handed this treasure over, he said that I could put it on whenever I needed to feel his hand holding mine.
I found this piece of Dad’s writing in a binder humbly titled (on yellow sticky note taped to the front) “Who was Dad” on September 7, 2024. Dad had not shared this with me previously, but it was with his other writings, and I’ll publish it below as it was found.
It was a difficult read, as it describes his own bedroom, complete with artifacts (artefacts). In fact, his room sits like this still. As an aside, the “Father Goose” image mention struck me particularly hard as it was a particularly meaningful art piece I had gifted him. We’d loved seeing the movie Fly Away Home together long ago, based on the real-life story of Father Goose who led Canada geese in his ultralight aircraft how to relearn the ancient wisdome of migrating south. (The movie follows a parallel story of an estranged father and daughter as they move toward a path of reconciliation.)
In the short story below Dad predicts what would ultimately be the cause of his own death. It remains unfathomable to me that my beloved Dad who had the greatest hearts suffered from heart failure in the end.
The Poet’s Death Bed – Richard Davies
The coroner was greeted by the deceased’s wife at the front door when he arrived, gave his sincere condolences, and was shown upstairs to a small room with open blinds, leafy plants in one corner, and a single bed embracing the body. The only other furniture was a chest-high bureau, a tiny night table, and a tall bookshelf with a large looming bust of Shakespeare on top.
On the green walls were two undersized heads of Holmes and Watson, a poster of “Father Goose” airborne in his ultra-light aircraft surrounded by geese, and a framed poster of an old Dylan Thomas LP showing an imagined boy flying freely above a fantasy town.
On the other wall was an Alex Colville showing a young woman riding her bicycle in sync with a crow in flight beside her and yet another poster of early Canadian voyageurs paddling into a mysterious mist above the morning waters.
Only then did he choose to look down at the deceased stretched out, as he had been found, on the narrow bed, covers pulled down. The man wore only modest briefs and had been left that way for the coroner to discover when he entered the room. There was no sense of struggle or signs of anguish, only a strange peaceful look on the dead man’s face.
The coroner continued his examination and wrote down his findings and verdict on a clipboard he had brought with him. It was when he stood up that he noticed a piece of paper underneath the night table which he bent over and picked up. It appeared to be a handwritten poem on both sides which went:
“It is no longer for me to say for you. You will need to fill in the blanks yourself, to answer the remaining questions, to find your missing peace and decide which dream is worth the living and dying for.
It remains but for you to walk alone on that beach with nothing but your thoughts. It is up to you to decide if touch is the best art of all and if an old Inner Child still lives.
It is not in this poem then that someone will smile fondly at you and find all you saw so interesting. It is no longer the job of this poet to free you, to whisper your name, or tell you where all the treasure’s hid.
No it is you alone who will write the last poem, love- your very own, and tell us all who you truly, really are.”
He thought for a moment and replaced the paper under the night table for someone else to find later. The quality of his day forever changed, he was about to leave the house when a family member appeared and inquired about the cause of death.
Normally he would have said nothing and maintained confidentiality, but he thought back to the room and what he had seen and read there which had moved him unexpectedly. “Heart failure,” he said.
Outside, the coroner got into his car, started it, and turned on the radio, immediately searching for a classical FM station. “Poor devil. Like all high romantics,” he thought to himself as the music began to flow, “his heart just gave out finally.” And he wondered, about the poem’s significance, what the poet’s life must have been like, and then, suddenly, what his own sad end might someday be.
The last two days have been excruciating in terms of notifying utility and credit card companies of my father’s passing. How many times does one need to say “He’s dead. He’s passed away. My father is gone, dead. No, it’s not for me, it’s for my dad, but he’s deceased”? Apparently again and again and again, in many different ways, a thousand cuts. I’d say “death by”, but this waking sort of suffering is far worse.
I’ve been stuck in that netherworld of waiting for hours on hold, listening to cheery music, advertisement for Apps, and “we’re experiencing higher than usual call volumes” on repeat. In the end Rogers/Shaw has won for longest wait time so far: that one was resolved at exactly the five hour mark, after two calls and multiple social media direct messages later. Despite the lady’s cheerful reassurance every four minutes during the first 2.5 hours I was on hold (before the system hung up on me) that the takeover of Shaw from Rogers wouldn’t impact me, it did in the end. After an hour and a half of going back and forth with a service rep on X (only used for company shaming these days, Mastodon is our beloved haven) via messages, the Rogers fellow couldn’t help me at all. He kept making me verify my dad’s identity again and again, coming back with saying my father didn’t exist (which ironically is true). Finally it was revealed that Rogers systems aren’t talking with Shaw systems, and he had zero access, please call the line that hung up on me after 2.5 hours.
When you do finally locate a human being (or good AI version, hard to tell the difference these days), they often offer their condolences, usually with that obligated hollow sounding way. A few alter their tone and sound genuine. I always long to tell him about the multifaceted gem Dad was; how he lived his life and brought joy to everyone. How talented and loving and wonderful he was. How the world has suffered a great loss. Instead I offer a weepy “thanks” and get on with the business at hand.
In the midst of waiting on Shaw and dealing with Epcor rather tearily at the same time, the Epcor fellow said “he’s in a better place now”. Given the hell of bureaucracy, a world eating itself and facing life without the joy of Dad, his words rang all too true.
Oil Painting: Sadak in Search of the Waters of Oblivion – John Martin (1812)
“Thou wast not born for death, immortal bird” – Ode to a Nightingale, John Keats
Dad felt a deep kinship with nature and was very close to his feathered friends and squirrels. He would would head out donned in robe and cap early in the morning, even on the most frigid -50C windchill days, to feed the “little blighters” (a term used by his Dad/my Grandpa Davies- affectionately, of course!).
The outdoor birds in the area relied on him for sustenance, particularly when times were lean during winter, often watching for him nearby, quietly, ready to descend when the seeds were refilled. (Occasionally birds/squirrels would peer inside the living room window rather pointedly if the stash was getting low.) He relied just as much on them, a tether to the wild world within the urban landscape, a constant reminder of nature’s pure and rugged beauty. Always prepared for an encounter, his pockets would often have peanuts for the squirrels and jay, and he’d always affectionately offer a peanut to me whenever he stopped by for a visit, a simple gesture which I would always pass along to our appreciative magpies.
By extension, he also loved owls. The symbolism was naturally attractive – wise, deep, powerful, and (clearly intimated) well-read. A perfect fit with All That is Dad. He collected a few special owl momentos over the years, some of which he kept above his desk. (His study is a veritable feast for the senses, and will have to be examined more closely at some point later.)
As Jason and I associated everyone in the family with an animal (a beautiful tradition started by Jason’s late father; that’s another post in time), we affectionately referred to him as “Grey Owl” over the years, short for the “Great Grey Owl”. The Great Grey is largest owl in the world by length, and one of the most dapper and magnificent (and wisest looking) owls – a perfect fit. I was so excited to find an outside statue of an owl reading in 2019 for Father’s Day- and it looked just like Dad reading!
(When searching for a picture of the reading owl below, I was struck by this photo below on Mom’s iPad. The hummingbird beside reminds me of a Seals and Crofts song Dad was drawn to in his last year of life and went out of his way to share multiple versions with me. Its haunting refrain resonates especially now: “Hummingbird don’t fly away, fly away. Hummingbird don’t fly away, fly away”)
On July 29, 2024, the family been called in to ICU. It was one of those horrific, dreaded calls, during those terrible early morning hours when there are no good calls.
Afterwards, our hearts and lives fractured, we made it home in that surreal dissociated trauma state, and as soon as we stepped out of the van we were greeted by a tiny grey feather. It was perfectly placed, but very distinct, the dark grey juxtaposed against the light concrete driveway. The symbolism was far too much to ignore; Dad had transcended and taken flight.
As we stood in utter shock and tears staring, a light wind lifted it gently and it slowly blew into the garage. It led us in. We we followed it, and then gathered the strength to go inside, entering the house for the first time in a world no longer with him in it. (Feather below; this past week I collected it in a bag, in a prescient moment before an accident in the garage. The bag is similar to the feather he had collected and shared with me years ago.)
Epilogue: A few days later, while working out Celebration of Life arrangements, we learned of the beautiful urn Dad had chosen to house his remains. It is titled “Take Flight”:
“A bird in the house means a death in the house” – A Bird in the House, Margaret Laurence
While not superstitious to any significant extent, this portent from Margaret Laurence’s story has haunted me ever since I encountered it in high school. The quote comes from the short story “A Bird in the House”, within the same-titled novel of eight short stories. A sparrow trapped in the main character Vanessa’s bedroom foreshadowed the death of her father.
Enounters with birds in unfortunate circumstances have always deeply upset me, from the time I found a lifeless robin amongst our garden of corn as a child.
This spring I heard a loud chirping off and on over a few minutes. It sounded as if it was coming from the attached garage, but the sparrows were unusually loud in the front, so I wasn’t entirely clear from whence the song came. I opened the garage door with dread. All was quiet. I heard birds chirping outside. It was all quiet in the garage, and so I closed it, feeling relieved.
The next day I was backing out with the Lake Louise-green Toyota Corolla Dad had so lovingly passed on to me, when I hit the brake abruptly on the driveway. In front where I had just pulled out, a tiny lifeless body lay on the cold, grey garage floor.
I knew what it was before I climbed out to more closely inspect. My heart in my throat I found it laying peaceful, under my car. I feared for its final moments, and I wept.
Jason helped me lovingly wrap the tiny body in some white fabric of my late Grandma’s (Mom’s side) and I placed it in a tiny box, sealing and writing on the outside. And then I sobbed some more.
A few weeks later, my parents had a very upsetting event. They’d gone a bit incommunicado for a bit and I knew something was wrong. When Mom finally wrote, very upset she shared a picture of what she’d found in the pink scaevola, right beside the door to the house on the patio. My heart was in my throat.
A sparrow had found its final refuge in Mom and Dad’s beautiful flowers, looking so peaceful, as if asleep. The deep feeling of horror and dread was reignited, and many more tears of utter sorrow for the tiny sweet bird were shed.
A few weeks later, when our garage door was about to be repaired, I opened the door, awaiting his imminent arrival. The wind was blowing from north to south, and I noticed some small light objects blowing in the open door. Poplar fluffs or some other seed from a blossoming tree, perhaps? Closer investigation proved to be a couple of sparrow feathers. I swept them out, thinking at the time that was the end of that. And yet more and more feathers kept blowing in, I kept sweeping, the service man arrived, I kept sweeping, quicker and more desperately at this point.Frantically sweeping, and realizing now that a murder had taken place nearby. I grabbed paper towel, picking them up as they continued to blow in, and kept sweeping.
My stomach sick, I kept sweeping. I could barely focus on the conversation with the garage man, who seemed unperturbed when I explained what I was doing.
I so desperately – unsuccessfully – tried to keep out the the feathers from my home. They were likely all that remained of a poor sparrow. An innocent sparrow who had met its untimely end via a horrific and unfortunate violent act. I kept sweeping, utterly traumatized. Tears were shed. Picture below was taken that day. Likely it is a feather that sits in the foreground by the scattered shoes. There were too many to keep out of my home.
A few weeks later, Dad was admitted to the hospital under the watchful eye of the Grey Nuns Hospital raven. The massive, craggy beast would shrieked its hoarse cry from the roof at me, and all other patients and visitors.
Despite the uneasy feelings that had been building for months, the constantly pushing back of terror and fear, and the multiple portents (this post focuses on birds; a future one will encompass the truly Shakespearean-styled nature-is-out-of-harmony apocalpytic crescendo of events we experienced), we all pushed on. What else can one do?
During her last few years on this earth, my late Grandma (Dad’s Mom) would quote Dylan Thomas: “Rage, rage against the dying of the light”. I had deeply internalized this poem and it served well during these final weeks. Until the last moments, we fought, and Dad fought. We raged, oh friends how we raged against the dying of the light. Ultimately all of us were in fate’s hands alone.
A Bird in the House*is an extraordinary novel (series of short stories) by Canadian writer Margaret Laurence. I was first introduced to the book in Senior High School English during a particularly coming of age time. The short stories, themes and images in this novel left a lasting impression, continuing to resonate through the years as I forge my own path in this world (okay, to be perfectly honest, they have at times haunted me, too).
Dad was particularly fond of this book, and was even able to secure his own cherished (and very rare) signed copy. Themes and expressions from these poignant short stories would arise in family conversations through the years (including the last weeks in the hospital). Below are a few of his posts to absorb.
(I’ll begin to share the significance of this book in the next blog post…)
June 9, 2021: Dad’s Blog Post on ToThineOwnSelfBeTrue.ca:
January 9, 2019: Dad’s Blog Post on ToThineOwnSelfBeTrue.ca:
March 10, 2022: Dad’s Blog Post on ToThineOwnSelfBeTrue.ca:
Our family continued to stop at Neepawa, Margaret Laurence’s home town as we travelled on road trips across the prairies to Dad’s home town of Winnipeg, and visit her houses and grave. We would also make stops in the graveyard, stopping by the family’s gravestones and pausing at the awe-inspiring angel statue in the cemetary, which served as inspiration for the title of another of Margaret Laurence’s novel, The Stone Angel. (Below picture was taken in 2019 – Jason and I (and our travelling rabbit Skye) stopped in Neepawa after meeting up with Mom and Dad for a sublime Winnipeg trip in the city).
* Remarkably, I do not currently have underline capability on this blog, apologies for bolding this title instead of giving it its proper due with an underline.
Below is the complete (unproofed) version of the Eulogy Scott and I read at Dad’s Celebration of Life service.
Richard Davies Eulogy – Part 1 (Heather Davies)
Hi, I’m Heather, Richard Davies’ daughter and older sister to Scott, and I’d like to share some memories about my beloved Dad’s beautiful life with you from his birth up to the time I was born, and then add a few personal reflections.
Richard Delmar Davies was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba on August 31, 1949, an only child to Vernon Delmar and Rosalie Davies. He was born the same year Laurence Olivier’s Hamlet won best picture, Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman debuted, and George Orwell’s 1984 was published. Truly, as Paul Simon sings, “Born at the Right Time”.
In his early years Dad and his parents lived in his grandmother Lucy’s house off Portage Avenue in St. James. Lucy owned a café, or as he called it, a greasy spoon, at the corner. His earliest memories from that period started around age three – he would sit in front of the radio console and record player, which often served as babysitter, listening to songs like Stan Freberg’s “Dear John”, and programs like “The Happy Gang”. Over time, entire worlds and soundscapes were introduced and began opening up to him. Many other early memories were also musical. In the summer of 1953 at age four, he remembered going to the move Calamity Jane with his mother and hearing Doris Day sing “Secret Love”. He also remembers Mr. Sandman playing on the jukebox in the old Winnipeg bus depot cafe while he listened with his Dad in the summer of 1955 and being in wonder at the magical illusions the song evoked. He had an uncanny ability to recall pop songs, dates, the location, and how he felt hearing them for the first time, and this continued throughout his life.
Dad attended the original Bannatyne school, built before WW1, for his early grades, and enjoyed his elementary studies, receiving honours about five times. That said, he also recalled skipping school in the fall to watch the New York Yankees in the World Series on a black and white TV. Trips to the Winnipeg Arena and Stadium to watch local hockey, baseball, and football games sparked a lifelong appreciation for sports. Eventually he played goal for the school soccer team, captained the baseball team from second base, and played goal on a playground C hockey team. In later grades he continued athletic pursuits, and was notably a fast runner and very good receiver in pickup football games, despite also discovering girls.
His deep love of dogs and the unwavering love and loyalty they offer first started with Scamp, an adopted mongrel (part Corgi) who was a steadfast companion for the only child starting in grade 1. Unfortunately on a summer day in grade 8 Dad returned home from a Grand Beach trip to find Scamp missing. His grandmother seemed unconcerned and had no clue where the dog had gone. Dad never fully recovered from losing his boyhood companion that day.
When the family moved into their own first house on Wallasey Street in 1955, grandpa decorated the veranda walls with Walt Disney cartoon characters for Dad to enjoy. Dad began to voraciously read MAD Magazine and the original Classic comics. In later years, he revisited this time period, listening to a similar transistor radio and collecting Classic Comics from his youth.
Dad’s life changed when he brought his first 45s in the later grades of elementary school – the first big three were “Blue Moon” by The Marcelles, a doo-wop band, Floyd Cramer’s “On the Rebound”, and “Bumble Boogie” by B. Bumble and The Stingers. He was in seventh heaven with his new records, spinning discs endlessly for himself, pretending he was a disc jockey.
Dad became a paperboy in 1958, when he was in grade 4, and delivered for the (long defunct) Winnipeg Tribune until 1963. He delivered the newspaper after school and Saturdays through all weather extremes. He bought his own 2-transistor radio with money earned and would bring his transistor radio everywhere he went between grades 5 and 11 – including on his paper route, of course! Long enamoured by the coin changers sported by bus drivers, Dad also bought his own coin changer to use when collecting, greatly impressing his customers!
A bus driver, in fact, was what young Richard aspired to become in the 1950s. He once said, “I was always impressed by these guys because if my car-less family went anywhere, it was by bus. I was always interested… to sit upfront where I could see the drivers and their routines. In my only-child fantasy life, I would pretend to be a bus driver and ride my mother’s bike, making stops, pretending to have a route of my own.”
Initially, Dad rode his mother’s pink single-speed despite criticisms by school friends who owned multi-speed bikes. Dad said after several years of paying his dues with that wonky pink bicycle, his grandmother surprised him with a CCM 3-speed bike from Eaton’s as a birthday present before he began grade 5, and that’s when his bike career moved into a higher gear. He began to use it for delivering newspapers, delivering drug store prescriptions, and getting around with friends, including to the air force base to watch movies.
Meanwhile in school, Dad began acting in grade 8, starting with a narrator role in Tom Sawyer (a grade 9 school operetta at Bannatyne). The plays and musicals to follow laid a path toward becoming Richard Davies the performer.
In the summer of ’63 when Dad was in grade 9 the family sold the house on Wallasey Street. Dad recalled, “My mother had me check the mail for the buyer’s cheque then come to her workplace downtown… so she could put it in the bank before the buyer changed his mind, as she put it”.
He was in grade 9 in 1964 when I first heard the Guess Who’s “Stop Teasin’ Me” on a 45 rpm single played on local Winnipeg radio. It fit in perfectly with the British Invasion songs on the radio at the time and he remembered being surprised and inspired that it was written and sung by a Winnipeg group. He quickly bought their first album.
Dad attended Silver Heights Collegiate for grades 10, 11 and 12. It was a relatively short walk across the field behind Billingsley Manor, the apartment complex the family now called home. He had his first writing stint in high school, writing for the student newspaper, covering sports and entertainment.
Dad joined a Kiwanis high school group for boys called the Key Club, and was responsible for booking talent for gatherings including the Burton Cummings band (before they earned the moniker The Guess Who on an American tour) for a school winter dance. It was a huge success, and shortly after their album later went to number one in Canada. To Winnipeg kids of the day, with the Guess Who and so many other great bands starting out, Dad always said the city felt like the center of the musical universe.
Dad also travelled with the Key Club to Ottawa and Toronto by train in a sleeper car of unsupervised grade 11 and 12 boys. Details of this first trip away from home were never fully disclosed, although he would say with a laugh and a shake of the head that it was a memorable and “very wild” time!
Dad encountered Shakespeare’s Macbeth and Robert Frost for the first time in grade 11 and Hamlet in grade 12. He also studied Keats’ Odes and Wordsworth’s “Tintern Abbey”, which opened up large, lofty, transcendent views of humans and Nature. This led him directly to university English studies, a career teaching high-school English, and a life-long interest in drama and poetry.
Between 1964 and 1972 he was enchanted by the lyrics of folk songs and folk songs by Bob Dylan, Simon and Garfunkel, and Gordon Lightfoot. He enjoyed the biting satire of folks songs by Phil Ochs such as “Draft Dodger Rage” and “I Ain’t Marching Anymore”. In the fall of 1967, he bought Och’s first album, Pleasures of the Harbor, and was delighted by every song, including the title track.
The hootenanny and Beatles eras of the early 1960s inspired Dad to finally buy a guitar, and he taught himself how to play chords in 1965-66. His music got more serious with his own performances in high school musicals such as The Mikado, Brigadoon, and Trial by Jury, coupled with listening to folk rock and music by The Beatles and the British Invasion. Dad started playing rock music with high school buddies – and formed many bands that never made it out of the basement. Years later he reconnected with a former classmate, Wayne Fraser, and they recorded demos around 1983 for about 25 songs Dad had written. The songs drew comments from Glen Campbell’s manager and Rita McNeill. Jack Richardson, who produced the Guess Who, liked Dad’s song “Computer Kid”.
Meanwhile, his high school marks went down. In fact, he had a D in grade 12 English going into final exams.
Over two summers he worked as nursing orderly at Winnipeg General Hospital. The work was physically demanding and he recalled lifting inpatients significantly heavier than his boyish frame. Unglamorous memories from that time lingered long after those two summers – for example, he remembered helping a large male patient relieve himself and discussing colloquial language for toilet paper. He learned the term “crap wrap” and thought it was quite clever.
In 1967 he attended the University of Winnipeg, enrolled in Arts, and had a very distracting first year. He met Mom in English class. Shortly after on a Friday lunch hour he met Mom by her locker, boldly suggesting she put her brown bag lunch back in the locker and join him for lunch at The Bay’s Paddlewheel restaurant instead. They had a fantastic year together. Dad was also playing solo gigs, and formed a very good folk trio with Glen Hall (guitar) who is now a jazz musician, and Ian Gardner, who ended up playing bass in Burton Cummings’ post-Guess Who band. He also led a folk quartet group called Clover. Dad also participated in the Vietnam demonstration on Memorial Boulevard, performing “Where Have All the Flowers Gone” with Bob Mowbray.
A busy year indeed. Through the year he only ended up taking three courses – and, he failed all three.
This was a major turning point. Mom moved to Edmonton with her family, and he got serious and buckled down in year 2.
After a long year apart from each other, dad said the reunion with Mom was the day above all days he would choose to relieve. In his own words: (It would be) “The May afternoon, 1969, when I stepped off the train from Winnipeg and walked two blocks to the old courthouse on Winston Churchill Square where my fiancé worked and we were reunited after a long year apart. (I sold my beautiful Gibson guitar to a Winnipeg pawn shop to buy the train ticket. I have always had my priorities straight in significant matters.) This event pretty much showed that the impossible was possible (in true Davies style), and confirmed that we were destined to be together despite the parental preferences, geographical and time-apart factors.”
After moving to Edmonton to be with Mom, Dad attended the University of Alberta, finishing his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1971 and graduation diploma in 1972.
Shockingly, his 30-year career as a senior high English teacher almost didn’t happen. He had an awful first round of student teaching at a junior high school: In his own words, “The first batch of writing assignments I took in were horrific: a ridiculous number of spelling and grammatical errors. ‘Twas very discouraging. Plus some run-ins with kids who were more like animals than human beings.” After vowing to quit, an auspicious encounter with a revered Education professor Glen Martin after hours in the education building convinced him to stick with it. And Glen was right – he had an encouraging, funny teacher for the senior high practicum, and the kids were better, smarter, had fewer errors in their work, and were overall more civil.
Mom and Dad married in Edmonton in 1971 at the Pleasantview United Church and travelled to Jasper for their honeymoon by train. As they arrived, the clerk was on the phone at the front desk, and upon seeing them, said “Oh there’s a call for you”. He had applied to Canada Post and they needed him to start work the very next day. Despite protests that he had just started his honeymoon, they told him that if he wanted the job he had to return to Edmonton tomorrow by noon. Mom and Dad nevertheless made the most of it and had an amazing day, renting bikes and exploring, before heading back to Edmonton the next morning.
Dad accepted a job in the remote northern town of Grand Centre, Alberta in 1972, where he would teach Senior High English for three years at the new Douglas Cardinal senior high school. Students of the day were just getting into pot, although drinking was still the mainstay in the area for both young and old. He recalled surreal school experiences during that time, including one afternoon when bands of students rounded up the teachers, individually summoning them where they were taunted, in a stunt reminiscent of the French Revolution.
Dad lived a double life during those Grand Centre years, teaching school by day and writing songs and playing country and rock music at night. He led a band called Four in 1972 as a rhythm guitarist and lead vocalist, which later morphed into Betty Plus Four. The band played bars, weddings, holiday parties in town, the air base, and as far as Namao. Playing New Year’s Eve in Wainwright scored the band $1200 – a lot of dough back then – and barracks accommodation, to boot. Believe it or not, reel-to-reel tape recordings of these gigs still exist in our basement.
Dad said, “We became the band in the area, playing many smoke-filled rooms for masses of drunk people. It was customary for the band to drink before and after shows and during sets. I was in some danger of becoming an alcoholic had I stayed in Grande Centre.”
I was born in 1975. At a cross roads between family, health, and career (he always reckoned could have stayed with Betty Plus Four, added a keyboard player and written more Neil Diamond-type songs), Mom and Dad chose to return to Edmonton.
I grew up in the 1980s and 1990s, which was a time period of immense personal and professional growth for Dad. He had hit his stride and was in his absolute prime, seeking out and seizing opportunities, taking his career and personal interests to the next level with boundless enthusiasm and energy. He truly was the embodiment of Walt Whitman’s “I am large, I contain multitudes”.
Scott will talk a bit more about this incredible productive time period in a minute, I’ll quickly add a few more personal reflections.
As a child I had only a vague awareness of what was going on – I remember the electric typewriter hum in the dinette, using the backs of photocopies he’d made for planning textbooks and teaching for art projects, and seeing him mark student papers on Sundays at family gatherings. I remember the pride and excitement I felt attending his poetry readings and book releases – and seeing his name authoring books. He was a celebrity superstar to me!
And yet – and quite separate from the personal and professional activities of the day- he was very much the ever present, loving, kind, doting, supporting father. He attended every one of my plays, concerts, award and grad ceremonies – always supporting and cheering me on. And holidays and birthdays were always enthusiastically celebrated, with endless joy and laughter.
He taught me fundamentals like how to ride a bike (which was an important symbol of autonomy for him), and how to play baseball. But beyond being pushed on the swing, tobogganing, taking me out stargazing, and seemingly endless and exquisitely planned summer trips, he also introduced me to the worlds of words, language, ideas, music, and the arts. Having a writer/poet/thinker as a Dad meant he might not be able to fix a leaky faucet or perfectly patch a wall, but we would have amazing conversations about consciousness, autonomy, and recurring themes and motifs in literature.
Dad introduced me to the concept of Virginia Woolf’s Moments of Being- those conscious moments where you purely experience reality. In high school we’d escape at lunch and go visit Hawrelak Park or Emily Murphy and drink in nature’s serenity and beauty. He showed me how to make time for my inner myself, and that I could experience the divine and the eternal in the simple here and now. Dad later said our trip to see the Dalai Lama in Calgary was one of the most uplifting and spiritual experiences of his life.
He introduced me to Joseph Campbell and the concept of following your bliss. We lived this mantra, seizing opportunities to go to plays, symphonies, concerts, art shows, and take quick trips out to the mountains. I was blessed to experience particularly moving concerts like Sting’s Soul Cages tour, Paul Simon’s Rhythm of the Saints and South Africa’s Johnny Clegg with him. I remember walking around Banff with him in the early hours of the morning absolutely euphotic after an out of this world performance by Johnny Clegg, his song “I’m searching for the spirit of the great heart” ringing in our ears. I reflect back now and realize this song is truly Dad. He really did have the spirit of the great heart and seized every day that way.
And he always approached the world with pure wonder. Simple pleasures, like having a sip of Baileys sitting outside on a crisp fall evening, hand feeding chickadees, or enjoying Italian coffee on Saturday mornings on the deck, were all rituals to experience, whether alone or with others, and savour. In the fall we would go “leafing”. Leafing was his unique fall term describing the transcendent experience of appreciating and taking in all fall has to offer, and return home from the river valley and University area with leaves to press – artefacts of this sacred experience.
His personal credo for living his life, as most of you know, was Emily Dickinson’s “I dwell in possibility”. Beyond living this way every day himself, which in and of itself is extraordinary, he also impacted all of us around him, in this same spirit. He had the unique ability to see the possibilities within ourselves and be a catalyst for us, connecting us to new ideas, opportunities for growth, new connections. He was a true possibilitarian, as he called himself. Dad collected spoken word LPs, cassettes, and CDs by numerous famous poets and writers and loved to share them with others to open up new experiences. He would send me an unbreaking stream of ideas, thoughts, possibilities by way of books, movies, music, and a heads up of live events coming up. He was always seeking to connect me to items he knew would resonate, open my mind, or fill my heart.
One time he shared a bookmark he had picked up at the Wild Book Store, as he’d happened to notice an old astronomy prof was giving a talk on solar eclipses and thought Jason and I might be interested. Were we ever! After attending the talk, Jason and I took a solar eclipse road trip odyssey that will likely be the greatest travel and spiritual experience of our lives.
Throughout all my childhood experiences, as I began to strike out into this devastatingly harsh and beautifully sublime world on my own, and as recent as this past July, one single, constant truth remained clear. I always had his rock-solid, always got your back, always in your corner, cheering you on, give-you-anything-you-need-even-at-great-personal-sacrifice support. I think about the endless opportunities he afforded me, the sacrifices he made, and the support he provided to ensure I had everything I needed to survive – and indeed thrive. So much of what was him lives in me, and I am so grateful. I love you so much, Dad.
Richard Davies Eulogy – Part 2 (Scott Davies)
I’ll pick up the story now, thinking a bit more about Mr. Davies, the teacher. Relocating to Edmonton, his time with Edmonton Public started in 1975 at McNally High School. In 1984, after 9 years at McNally, he spent two years at J. Percy Page, then in 1986 moved into what would be his longest tenure at Strathcona Composite – taking an early retirement 16 years later in 2002.
A favourite McNally memory was taking his students out in the fall and spring to the nearby view of the city to seek inspiration to write haiku poems. He always enjoyed revisiting this spot over the years.
After being declared surplus at McNally due to falling enrollment and a lack of seniority, he home-ran his interview at the brand-new Percy Page, getting the job on the spot and ultimately making the most of a chaotic, wild-west environment. I’ve heard some stories of staff mischief and practical jokes, too… This is when he had a movie camera and no one was safe from being caught on film only to reappear on-screen at a future staff function.
I do believe that Strathcona felt most like ‘home’ to him, even as the teaching profession changed over the years. He didn’t unload too much at the dinner table, but I caught the drift that he wasn’t always seeing eye to eye with administrators. When he had the chance, he seemed to know how to push the envelope just enough to make them squirm and eat their words, but without serious repercussions. “You’re going to get yourself fired!” my mom would say.
At Scona, Dad met music teacher Ken Klause, whom he described as his musical soulmate – an “ever youthful, pianist-vocalist”. Together, they founded Fudge – the teacher band, accompanied by a drum machine (some tech that my friends’ households certainly didn’t have!). They shared many laughs and it was said that whatever music they tackled they always went the “whole ten yards”. The core duo later became a trio with math teacher Ken Kulka, and they were joined by other talented colleagues over the years. From 1990 to 2002, Fudge had countless live performances for the Strathcona school community – lunch hour concerts, staff parties, graduation – you name it.
One might think that would be plenty for anyone, but my dad had yet another side-hustle: school textbooks! Dad met Glen Kirkland around 1977 in an evening grad course and they decided they could put together an education textbook for English 13-23-33. He and Glen formed a partnership in 1978 that extended to 2000. The Connections series – Imagining, Relating, and Discovering – was published by Gage in 1980. The books were popular and beat out all competition. This began a steady of publishing over the next 30 years of textbooks and guides, with some being used in every province across the country.
In conjunction with textbooks, he gave well over 100 workshops and presentations across Canada. Jerry Wowk, another equally-talented friend, carried the textbook writing torch with Dad in the 2000s. They collaborated on many excellent works together, but Dad always felt that the best book they worked on together could have been their E-Media book in 2010 – unfortunately the publisher that commissioned it backed out. By the time his textbook career wrapped up, he’d written over 60 texts and guides, selling over 1 million books (a huge number, considering schools don’t buy a new textbook every year for every student), reaching an estimated 5 million kids.
But wait, there’s more! During the 1980s and 1990s he was writing poetry, performing with Dean McKenzie and Glen Kirkland in their poetry trio Spiritus, reading in cafes, on radio, and even in the mall, and publishing two chapbooks – Lost, Not Missing in 1990 and This, That, The Other in 1991. In 2001, his first chapbook was launched – Negative Capability. The poetry collection was rounded out by four other self-published chapbooks over the last 8 years. He was an early recruit and regular reader for the Edmonton Stroll of Poets from its inception and happily returned to the fold 11 years ago after a hiatus.
Somewhere in all this, he also had a chance to revisit his drama days of yore. He formed the August Company – a troupe of teachers with a bent for drama, who performed two plays in Edmonton’s Fringe Festival. He co-wrote, acted and produced 60 Minutes Live from Loon River in 1988 and acted and produced the A Matter of Censorship in 1991.
A few other highlights to mention from these years. Dad’s love of the fall culminated in two bliss filled trips to New England – a perfect melting of Dad’s love of fall, the area, and the beloved writers of the past, including Robert Frost and Emily Dickinson who called New England home.
While teaching part time before retirement, he began working at Alberta Film Classification Services with Gerry Lawson as a Film Classifier for the province, and continued this role for a few years after retiring from the classroom. Yes, he got to see the movies before anyone else and determine the rating assigned in Alberta.
My family had a miniature poodle named Pepper for 18 years. She was the alpha female to his alpha male, and the two were closely bonded, sharing many a walk, Mandarin orange, and laugh. He would often pull a blanket over her head so only her eyes and nose would poke out, and blow on her face so she would bear her teeth, playing a pseudo Red Riding Hood wolf.
I can certainly echo much of what Heather shared about our childhood. I am incredibly fortunate for the life my parents were able to provide for me. Raising my own family, I am still learning to appreciate the enthusiasm and patience, but also sense of duty, he had in bringing us to live theatre, jazz, classical, & rock concerts, movies, poetry readings, museums, art galleries, and so on, and reading to us all the time, including longer novels as we grew up. He wasn’t just trying to “keep us busy” or “kill time” – each of these choices was carefully considered and he would prepare us with ideas and context beforehand. That might sound like “work” and, sure, sometimes his mopey teenaged kids needed some convincing, but it was ALWAYS a great time with him.
He had to be a very organized person to harness all those ideas and all that enthusiasm. Alas, there is no sight more familiar in my parents’ house than the classic yellow Post-It note. He would never leave a good idea or an important thought to chance – it was always written down.
So, whether it was various to-do lists or little notes and reminders to himself and others, the Post-It notes were quite endearing and a part of the behind-the-scenes magic that made our household a wonderful place. With the to-do lists, it kept everything important to him at the top of his mind. He loved celebrating holidays, birthdays, milestones, and any other special occasion, and never went too long without keeping in touch with his friends.
The Post-It notes made their way to others, too. Gifts would often have editorial comments attached to show what excited him about the gift. Indeed, giving was one of his love languages. Yes, he always wanted to know what to get for our birthdays, but there would always be surprise gifts that picked up on our interests and experiences, or that were a way of him sharing a part of himself, such as when he gave me a copy of Bob Dylan’s Bringing it all Back Home, probably 25 years ago now, which was the first of MANY CDs that were given to me with handwritten notes.
He would also hand off newspaper and magazine articles and email us links to things he wanted to share. I actually have the last one here…
I will say, it was hard to keep up sometimes! With his passing, I realized though that he probably knew this on some level, but also knew that he was filling my bucket for years to come.
“Always put something in, every day,” he would often remind me. And again, it would sometimes drive me nuts that he knew me so well! He knew exactly what I needed to hear. I was working too hard earlier this year and his prescription was always to find time to enjoy music, do some reading, keep learning, and enjoy my family. Follow my bliss.
In particular this last year, every time we spoke, and in his longer emails, he would always remind me, front and centre, that I have an amazing partner, wonderful children, an ideal family dog, a comfortable house, and a unique and fulfilling career at the U of A, the place we used to collect leaves and bike ride to.
Speaking of my family, I could talk all day about grandpa. From the moment my son Ben was born, my dad was in awe and in love with my kids in a way that wrote a completely new chapter in his life. We all quietly marveled at how he evolved his whole self into being grandpa.
In those early days, there was a rhythm to my parents’ daytime visits that my wife still speaks of to this day as being exactly what she needed, especially after I went back to work. He would bring a bag of ever-changing toys and books, some from my childhood, and just sit there with Ben. He was so patient, just watching and helping Ben explore the world, and later, walking around the house, pointing at objects and saying their names. No wonder Ben had an amazing vocabulary at such a young age.
A few years later, Caleb was born and grandpa didn’t miss a beat. He would take scores of pictures and videos and then later write emails to us reflecting on each visit and tracking both kids’ growth. Once again, he was helping give us perspective while we were in the thick of a busy young family’s life.
There is something of my dad in all of us, and you can definitely look at my kids to see him. They both have sharp minds, love to learn new things, and have seemingly endless possibilities in their future. Ben, it’s your relentless enthusiasm and planning and organization. Caleb, it’s your restless creativity and your love of reading. I’m never far from grandpa with you in my lives.
It was a great challenge when the pandemic started, as we would hear about the particular dangers of the virus for vulnerable people. Many of us are fortunate and haven’t had as much to worry about since the vaccines came about. Unfortunately, my dad had some conditions that put him at a greater risk. The last several years, he kept close to home, but adapted and found other ways to keep in touch and enjoy life. He dearly missed the visits and gatherings, but continued to savour his passions and relationships however he could. Ultimately, he lived his best life right to the end.
Mom and Dad began a newlywed adventure when Dad secured his first senior high english teaching job in Grand Centre and moved to Cold Lake. As food choices were scarce in the small town, they soon purchased a freezer to store more food options.
Below, a pic filled with promise and potential. Dad is driving their first car, a Toyota Corolla, and is approaching the entrance to the small town of Cold Lake- the beginning of a new life together.
The day after we buried Dad, we discovered that the steadfast Grand Centre freezer had failed, likely during the funeral. The motor simply gave out… and the coincidence seems almost too much to bear. It had served our family well. I’ve arranged for pick up tomorrow.
(“Stop all the clocks” – a line taken from WH Auden’s poem Funeral Blues”. Of late there has been a seizing up of machinery/technology around us)
Armed with proof of life for Dad (am I not the ultimate proof of life? and loss, for that matter?), we headed back to the Funeral Home today to sort out some more paperwork. Nine minutes early in the parking lot it was early enough to be awkward, so we paused to wait. I glanced south and the corner of my eye caught a giant brown creature fly into the trees. A quick drive closer and it was clearly a hawk, likely Swainson’s. He was MASSIVE. It was startling to see such a large predator deep within city limits.
After walking a bit on the branch awkwardly and finally finding his balance, he then fixed his eye squarely on me:
(I’ll have to dedicate a post or two to the ongoing bird motif and its connection to Dad soon…)
After gazing in awe for a few more minutes at the raptor greeting us, it was time to go in. We entered Hainstock’s Funeral Home and Crematorium (even the name sounds gloomy, doesn’t it?). We met a dusty mammoth of a man who led us upstairs through some doors and a long corridor filled with dark rooms to an end dark room which was quite solemn and magnificently furnished. One couldn’t help but immediately spy the tissue box at the center of the table upon walking in, followed by that familiar surreal this-can’tpossibly-be-happening feeling wash over you for the ten thousandth time. We were then led through signing an endless number of indistinguishable documents in the same room Dad had planned his funeral years ago.
As is the case most of the time these days when interacting with the outside world, it all seemed quite grey and blurred, with little meaning and dwarfed by the immense pain from the gaping hole in my heart. A dissociation of sorts, I guess. There was one takeaway from the encounter, however-
The Government of Canada bequeaths a one time $2,500 death “benefit” to a survivor. I guess this is an attempt to offset some of the money ($10,000-$20,000 minimum if you want a funeral) one has to pay to die… And just to dig the knife in a little deeper, the death benefit itself is taxed.
… About an hour after the appointment, as I was switching Dad’s Toyota Corolla to reverse in the garage, I happened to glance upward to my left and gave a start. It was a poster Dad must have added this spring when he refreshed the posters that hang in the garage. The bird motif continues. A surreal day, indeed.
We are gathering documentation today to prove who Dad was and that he is gone.
The irony leaves me breathless. I am tempted to write so very much more here, but I must refrain. I am too tired, for I had to pick up and open his wallet today.
It was at least ten billion solar masses heavy.
He loved his bike. Bikes equalled freedom and joy to him. I’d brought the wallet to him when he was in ICU, unresponsive, those final days. When I placed it in his hand I swear there was a reflexive response. I’d told him he would be using it again soon.
