“Hi Ryan. I hope you’re doing well. Let me know when you’ve got time for a call. I have something I need to talk about with you. Thanks, Rob” – Jan 23, 5:33pm.
Never have I written a article that I wanted to write so much, but couldn’t bring myself to do. This one has been maybe the toughest I’ve ever written, and I’m still processing much of what I am going to write about today. It is also a profound mix of both my professional and personal lives…but that just makes it all the more important of a story to tell.
The message that opens this newsletter was sent to me earlier this year by my dear friend Rob. Rob is a fantastic person. We met around 20 years ago, when he married my long-time friend Melodie. Mel and I have known each other most of our lives, having shared the same piano teacher, and growing up in a small rural area. We even played in a saxophone quintet and other musical groups together all through high school. Our friendship is now over four decades old. (We also agree that there is no way that we can be this old…)
I first met Rob at the wedding of a mutual friend of Melodie’s and mine. My wife Bridget and I sat next to the two of them, and it had been a few years since Melodie and I had a chance to catch up. It was also my first chance to get to know Rob.
What really stood out for me at that wedding was Rob’s infectious laugh, as well as his great love (and ability!) to pull off a good-natured prank. He could deliver a comment with a dead-serious face, betrayed only by a mischievous twinkle in his eye. I was also delighted to find out that Rob’s level of sheer nerdiness exceeded my own by several orders of magnitude. We bonded over discussions on Star Wars (one of his great passions), video games, and role-playing games. Up until that moment, I was fairly certain I was the biggest nerd around. It was simply not fair that Rob was both much more outgoing and socially adept, and far more handsome than the rest of us nerds .
I remember leaving that wedding having had so much fun, and commenting to Bridget about what a lovely partner Melodie had managed to snag. In Melodie’s own words “he was one of the good ones.”
When I founded Quiet Legacy back in 2012, I realized that we were going to need a logo. Rob was the first person I turned to. Rob was a terrific designer – having trained as an illustrator, and had worked for years in Graphic Design. A few weeks, and delightful conversation later, our logo and brand identity was born, and it is still the same one we use today. Mel and Rob would go on to be some of Quiet Legacy’s first clients.
The four of us and our kids have had many wonderful memories over the years, ranging from much geeky New Year’s eve silliness, shared the emotional highs and sleep-deprived lows of parenting, and many many board and video games.
One memory stands out the strongest, however. Shortly after pandemic restrictions lifted, we met for the first time in a long while at a restaurant in Woodstock, which was exactly halfway between our respective homes. After a great dinner we had (as is our nature), a lengthy conversation on the sidewalk on the way to our cars. We’d spent a good deal of dinner talking about how we all had close friends who had sudden health crises, and friends who didn’t survive the pandemic. This experience had led us all independently to openly telling our friends how much we loved them. As our fifties approached, we were realizing that sometimes you might not have the chance. We hugged, and headed home.
Then came January…
This past January, Rob’s message came in that I shared at the beginning of this article. I’ve been a planner for over two decades, and his choice of words had set alarm bells ringing. Nobody leaves that message without having bad news to relay.
I called Rob back immediately. He told me about the last few months. In the late fall, he had some problems with indigestion. When treatment hadn’t worked, his doctor had run more tests, and Rob was then diagnosed with Stage IV Pancreatic Cancer. Over the holidays, he had surgery to remove what he could, and would be going into treatment.
Rob was pretty positive, even with such a devastating diagnosis. He was relatively young, and in good shape to undergo Chemo. Still, it was clear that the diagnosis was terminal – but the hope was he would have as much time as possible.
Rob asked if we would review all the planning work that he, Mel and myself had done years before. And, he then suggested that Mel, Bridget and I all get together for the dinner we had long planned, but constantly put off. It was, as always, a wonderful visit, albeit much more emotional than usual for all of us.
One thing I am immensely grateful for, is that we took the time to do proper planning a decade or so ago. As we went over the checklists I use for these kinds of situations, it was clear that Rob and Mel would have the resources to tackle a difficult few months. Rob had a critical illness insurance policy that we had set up years ago that gave a sufficient financial cushion to clear out car payments, give a buffer of cash to make sure Melodie could take time off work, and max out his unused TFSA room. The latter is vitally important if someone has a terminal illness. With Melodie as Rob’s successor holder (only a spouse can be so), she would be able to permanently add Rob’s lifetime used TFSA room to her own lifetime TFSA room. The important catch, however, is that you can only inherit the TFSA funds that are in the account at the spouse’s date of death. So, even if you have to borrow money to top up in this scenario, it is well worth doing. Many people don’t realize how important this planning step is to the long-term finances of the survivor.
We also took the time to ensure that all of Rob’s beneficiaries and will and Power of Attorney documents were still valid – which, thankfully, they were. Should Rob have lost mental capacity during treatment, or from the cancer spreading, no one else would have the legal ability to change his will or list of beneficiaries. This was another crucial step.
Again, fortunately, the work from almost a decade prior held up, and nothing needed to be changed or updated. We also had a difficult, but practical conversation about end of life issues, including the potential role of Hospice care, and the importance of learning about the role of Hospice in the end-stages of Cancer. We also made sure that everyone knew where crucial documents were, such as Wills, Powers of Attorney, the Marriage Certificate, and a list of important virtual accounts and passwords.
A few days later, Rob started treatment, and at first, things went well – even too well. His tumours shrunk so rapidly, however, they became infected, and we had a serious scare. Unfortunately, this interrupted his chemo for long enough that his very aggressive tumours bounced back and began to spread again .When Bridget and I left for Scotland in mid-July, we called on the way to the airport. Rob had just gone to take his dad to a Forumla One exhibit in Toronto, as part of his father’s day gift to him, and was looking forward to getting back into a regular chemo routine now that the infection issues were under control.
Things turned quickly, however, while we were away. We returned to find out that a tumour had started to affect the blood supply to Rob’s liver, and that he was declining rapidly. Rob, Melodie, and the kids were able to take one last trip up to his family cottage at the end of July. Within the first few days of August, Rob declined rapidly. He went into Hospice care on Tuesday morning, and was gone just after midnight the next day. I woke up to a 3am text with the news from Melodie.
With all the planning work we had done, Melodie and I got together to go over everything we needed. It was challenging, but the preparations we had done made it go smoothly. Somehow, we kept things together through most of that afternoon, other than one moment where we had to stop and find a box of Kleenex. It would be at the end of that afternoon though, where I would lose it the most.
As I mentioned earlier, Rob was a massive Star Wars fan. Last summer I had been given a loud Hawaiian shirt, which had a multitude of Star Wars characters and ships hidden amongst Palm trees. I hadn’t had a chance to show it to Rob, but I know he would have absolutely loved it. I couldn’t make it through the sentence without choking up (something I am doing now again as I type this). “Why,” I said to Melodie “is that we made it through all the paperwork, but this is what is doing me in?”. Mel chuckled, and said “that’s because the other stuff wasn’t Rob, but this is.” She then asked me to wait a moment to show me something. A minute later she returned with the memorial card that the designer at the funeral home had put together. There was a great picture of Rob on the front, and inside was a beautiful illustration of a Star Wars At-At walker. The graphic designer had used it as a placeholder, knowing Rob’s love of Star Wars. Mel then laughed more to tell me that the designer at complete random, had chosen Rob’s favourite illustrator’s work as the placeholder, and she asked them to leave it in. “So yes,” she said, “you totally need to wear that shirt.”
Rob’s celebration of life was wonderful, with a huge crowd of the many, many people he had touched in his life attending. His Star Wars, and other nerdy memorabilia was on display, and we even had a chance to chat and catch up with the sister of the groom of the wedding that we had met Rob at nearly two decades before.
At his burial, a few weeks later, there was a beautiful moment where we were all invited to lay a hand on his urn and say goodbye. It was a deep and profound moment, and I’m still brought to tears thinking about it. My only regret was that in the moment was that none of us had brought a set of D&D dice along, and at least attempted a revivify spell from the game. Being the ultimate nerd (and Dungeon Master) that he was, I felt that he would have expected his friends to at least give it a try!
My friend was a fundamentally wonderful person. He put his heart and soul into his family, and was fiercely proud and protective of them. Rob is a testament to the best we can be as humans – he was kind, gracious, and present in everything he did, and he valued those he loved and those who loved him. In life, and death, he’s massively impacted how Bridget and I approach the notion of legacy. The legacy he’s left us is rich in memory, and wonderful in spirit.
I’ll leave you with my all-time favourite memory of Rob, in October of 2010. We’d met up in St. Mary’s with all of our kids, and took them to a farm with a Corn Maze, tractor rides and many other activities for our toddlers. The crowning moment, was climbing to the top of a big hill to see the pumpkin trebuchet. The farm had a huge medieval trebuchet, in which visitors could load up a pumpkin, which was aimed at a hill, where a very plump and happy cow stood watching. Our kids pulled on a rope, and launched a pumpkin high into the sky, as if it was one of the giant stones from the Lord of the Rings movies. We watched the cow eye up the orange projectile, step just to the side, and then enjoy herself a tasty snack. As our kids cheered, and us tired parents felt like we had won the day.
In that moment, Rob turned to us with his eyes twinkling, a big grin splitting his face, and said “That… was ….awesome! I want one too!”. Suddenly, the four of us parents were all giggling and six years old again ourselves. Whenever I think of Rob, it will be that grin, and twinkle in his eyes of delight that comes to mind.
Goodbye my friend, and may the force be with you.
Ryan
Many thanks to my dear friend Melodie for allowing us to share Rob’s journey.