“It’s just people helping people”, he said, and I rolled my teenage eyes. We had moved an altogether-too-big-for-the-truck horse-drawn sleigh to a friend’s flower shop in Sarnia to serve as a Christmas display. I was along for the job as muscle and shifted impatiently as the shop owner tried to pay my Pop for the assistance or at least send him home with an armload of flowers, which he refused. These impossible (or at least improbable) missions were his favourite, cheerfully done for thanks alone.
While I didn’t fully appreciate it then, the help given returned to him time and again. Everyone we needed turned up to raise the walls on our garage. Later, out in the world and far from home, it took me some doing to find my own place to contribute.
He, like me, like us, was a bundle of imperfections and perfections. Before he passed, my Pop said “I’ve done everything I wanted to do in my life.” Here I am, still working on that.
Duncan McLean White – 1942-06-17 to 2014-03-31
Think about him often, my ol’ buddy Dunc.
Beautifully said, Darin, and so true! I was thinking of Dunc yesterday. He was more like my brother than my brother-in-law. He loved people and he especially loved you, David and your Mum.