Eulogy for Ross Clements by Niece Sandra Shaw

 

I am sorry I am unable to be with you today in this time of family sorrow.  Each time a member of our large family leaves us in this manner, I feel like we are being pushed farther from a star around which we all revolve.  As our family actually grows larger, our gravitational ties grow weaker.  Ross’s parents, Anne and Fred could be likened to the sun, with 13 children, represented by planets, revolving around them. Their children can be symbolised by the moons which revolve around the planets and their children perhaps by captured comets.  When Anne and Fred passed away many years ago, the sun’s pull began to weaken.  Now, with each planet’s demise, the system’s energy flags and we increase the danger of individually being set adrift irrespective of how many moons and comets are in the system.

Uncle Ross was a very special planet to me. As I was growing up, I spent summers with Uncle Ross, Aunt Joan, Susie, Pat, Mary Lou and Wayne at the farm north of Brampton (Clifford came along well after I stopped going up and started working).  Uncle Ross was a man of opposites.  He could be quite gruff and thus scary to small children, and yet could be as soft as a marshmallow. My memories of Ross are numerous and include a lot of firsts which influence me to this day.  On the farm, there were cattle and sheep.  I held my first baby lamb at Uncle Ross’s and had the privilege of feeding it with a bottle.  Truly a wonderful experience – the softness of its fur and the neediness in its bleat.   It was Uncle Ross who gently placed the lamb in my arms.  It was a very special gift.

In those days, Uncle Ross worked two jobs – at American Motors and on the farm.  He, amongst others, taught me that life demanded hard work and long hours of labour but Ross alone showed me there could be pride and humour in drudgery.  One summer’s day, after distributing manure on the back forty and, quite frankly  asphyxiating us kids with the smell, he happily informed us he was spreading ‘honey’ on the fields.  Its sweetness would make the crops thrive.  Every time I smell cow or pig poop, I think of Uncle Ross – perhaps not what he wanted me to remember him for – and I recall that expression – ‘honey on the fields’... and I always reflect on how necessary even the worst of what life can throw you – for example, animal excrement – is to living a full and flourishing existence.  Now that I have my own little farm, his expression has become even more poignant and I have thought of him numerous times since I took possession of my small holding and smelled the neighbours readying their fields for planting.

Uncle Ross introduced me to the two seat outhouse – an interesting construction into which Mary Lou fell repeatedly and I hated with a passion.  It smelled (not honey sweet, I can tell you) and was uncomfortable, the mosquitoes bit like the dickens and the path to it was dark and scary at night.  But it was functional and inexpensive and showed that you could do with what existed and you didn’t always need expensive add-ons or upgrades.

I was rather a small child and to tell you the truth, as a youngster, I thought Uncle Ross was pretty tall – in fact, he was a friendly giant.  You can already see the humour in that.  It was only in my late twenties that I realised I had leprechauns as uncles and Ross was the shortest leprechaun of all.  But Ross also had the most beautiful eyes – large, twinkly eyes that belied his crustiness and shone with humour.  His children have inherited those eyes.  And despite his small stature, he never exhibited a Napoleon Complex.  He was never overly aggressive in my presence or domineering.  In fact he was quiet and contemplative.  He tolerated our wild summer hijinks.  He loved nature and all animals.  He loved his parents, brothers and sisters, his wife, his children and grandchildren.  I believe he loved me...and I will miss him.

With Ross’s death, his gravity has dissipated – but another pull of wonderful memories and lasting life lessons will bind him to us forever.

In God’s grace rests Uncle Ross.  Peace be with him.

Thank you.

Hello and thank you for coming today.

Thank you for coming to pay your respects to my father, Ross Clements who was truly a great man. … a great man.

He didn’t win a Nobel prize … but I would have voted for him.

He wasn’t awarded the Order of Canada – but I would have supported that too.

He was simply a kind, generous, unassuming man who touched the hearts of the many people who were fortunate enough to know him.

It has been a roller coast ride for many of us over the past week or so.  While it is not uncommon these days for people to live well into their 80s as Dad did – he had just had his 84th birthday – it was still a shock for me and my family and I am sure many of you.

And so starts the roller coaster – At times our heart has been very heavy, at others, especially as we reminisce and relive moments in Dad’s life it was filled with great joy and almost always with laughter.

Today for perhaps the next half hour or so I suspect there will be more ups and downs.  Feel free to cry of course there always seems to be a lot of that at funerals but also feel free to laugh and clap when you feel like it because that is what Dad would have wanted…especially the laughing part because that was so much a part of his life.

We are going to keep it light and reasonably brief which is what he would have wanted. 

Karen, one of Aunt Bet’s and Uncle Art’s daughters and one of Ross’ nieces has something planned for us that will help us relive moments from Dad’s life.

 

As I said we are going to make this as fun as possible.  All I ask is you don’t leave here and tell everyone you went to a funeral and had so much fun because then everyone will want to do it. 

There is a letter from Sandy Shaw (another of Ross’ nieces that will be read and a video that Ross’ granddaughter (my daughter Barbara, has prepared).

Then we can all head over to the Legion 111 Dufferin Street for some sandwiches and coffee and such – Go to the second entrance.  If you don’t know where that is find someone and tag a long.  We are a friendly group here.

Let’s start with a minute or so of silence to collect our thoughts.

 

Dad was many things too many people and he touched the lives of many.

Something you may not know about Ross - He was a stunt double for Elmer Fudd or at least he was trying out for that role. 

He fell out of Barb Collin’sWillowtree (I never did find out why he was in her willow tree – maybe someone who knows can tell me later.)  He fell off the roof of the orange hall in Thompsonville.  He fell through the floor at Leila Irvin’s place.  That time though he broke his neck so I think that ended that career.

So yes he was a cat with many lives as well. 

One year we took him toNewfoundlandand we stayed byGrossMornePark.  There is a place that you can climb - kind of a mountain – basically a trail up hill for 2 or 3 kilometers.  I thought it would be a good idea for all of us to go to the top.  About halfway up Dad is panting and gasping for breath and I think oh my god – I’ve killed him and then my wife comes up and helpful person that she is looked at me . and starts asking what could I have been thinking to bring a 74 year old man up a mountain.  So by now I am feeling really good about my decision.  While this was going on Dad had sat down on a bench. 

So I turned to talk to him to see if perhaps we should just go back down but he was gone.  He hadn’t gone past us to go back down so that left only one option.  So we took off after him up the trail.  We pass a couple in their early 20s and ask if they have seen him and they said oh yah – he passed them like they were standing still and they said they hoped they had that much energy when they were that old.

So we finally all got together at the top and Dad was perfectly fine (fortunately for me I suppose).

I am not sure how many lives we are up to yet but even before that he looked cancer in the face and he basically told it to “bugger off  - its not my tim”e and that was almost 20 years ago.

Dad was a hard worker.  While I was growing up he worked at a car factory full time and managed a 100 acre farm with sheep and cows, which was a second full time job.  One day he was using a machine to turn the hay over so it would dry and one of the pointy things went entirely through his foot. 

Did he go to the doctor?  Nope

He put on some mercurcome (can you believe we use to put mercury on open cuts) and a band aid and then he went to his other job at the car plant.  The foreman needless to say sent him home.

For years he lived here in Alliston (Thompsonville) and commuted toBramptonto work and I don’t think he was late for work once in all those years even with rain and snow storms. 

One day Dad was commenting on how hard I worked and he said “I don’t know where you get it from” and all I could do was laugh.

He was a comedian – always laughing always coming home with an endless stream of jokes.  These were clean jokes.  I didn’t know he knew the “f” word until I was 30 and then I found out he knew a lot more.   These jokes were never racial jokes or demeaning to anyone.  Ok – the newfie jokes perhaps but to be fair he learnt the newfie jokes from his newfie co-workers at the car plant.

He was one of the most intelligent people I know yet he only had a grade 8 education but you wouldn’t know it.  In fact he was a walking Internet with a better search engine then google.  Marilyn and I would often say we saw this plant or this bird and describe it to him and inevitably he would come back with not just the name but some details about the plant or animal as well.

He was always up on current events and he’d often start a conversation with…did you see what So and So is doing now?  And then we’d have to play a game to figure out who he was talking about.  Leader of the federal government (currently Harper), leader of the provincial government (McGuinty) after that it was like a guessing game.

He was a human rights activist.  I remember driving with him one day.  I was 12 or 13 years old and he saw some black angus cows in a field with some white charolais cows eating peacefully away, together and he said why can’t people get along like that.  I was blown away.  I thought that was so cool that my dad saw people that way.

You might say –Waynethat’s not an example of an activist.   But it is and it really speaks to the core of Dad’s belief system.  Dad was not one to join groups or march or write letters or any of those things you typically associate with activism.  What he did was set the example.  What he did was walk the talk.  Take responsibility for your own actions and do the right thing.

He was a supporter of women’s rights.  Early on when he worked in the car plant they started allowing women to work in the plant.  Dad would often take a new person, especially a woman, under his wing and help them learn what they needed to learn and take up some of the work they were supposed to do until they got the hang of it.  He actually believed women were better workers in the factory then men and certainly believed in equal pay for equal work.

Honesty, truthfulness, hard work and kindness were all things he valued and the rest didn’t matter a whole lot. He didn’t much care if you were black or brown or even gay for that matter.   He would often say we are all red on the inside. 

OK so he wasn’t perfect … If you were a guy and had long hair you kinda had to earn his respect but I think that is because he went bald at an early age. 

He loved animals.  He finished school at grade 8 but if he went on in school he always wanted to be a veterinarian.  And he would have been a damn good one too.  When we were on the farm we were not allowed to eat until the animals had been fed because they depended on us.

He was a good neighbour.  Always ready to help out.  I remember many times him heading up to Gord and Tency Irvin’s to fix something in the barn for them.

He was a good friend to many and that was important to him. Many times he turned down the role of a foreman at the car plant where he worked because that would affect his relationship with his co-workers – many who were his friends.  Friendship to him was certainly more important than money. 

Dad looked at life very simply.  He thought if you had a house, you had a car – what more material things could you want.  As far as he was concerned that’s all you need.

And of course Dad was a family man.

 He was a great brother.  I know his brothers and sisters of which there were many, meant a lot to him.  Aunt Nel, Aunt Bet, Uncle Nibs I know you truly meant a great deal to Dad and he loved you all very much.

He was a great husband and I remember Mom saying if I was half the husband my dad was I’d be doing well.  I’ve been married twice so I figure I am close.

I don’t think he could have been a better father-in-law to my wife.  She would have to answer that one.  Always supportive, always there.  He loved you so much.

A great father and I learned so much from him.  Certainly we know if we needed anything he was there.  In fact whenever we saw him, his parting words were always “Do you need anything?”.

One of his greatest passions was his grand children.  He’d often say that’s what I live for.  He was so proud of all of you.  He was very excited that Cassandra and Barbara were off to University this September.

We were lucky enough to have lived close by for the past 2 years and it was great to see the relationship with our girls and their grandfather grow. 

Dad of course was also a builder and he could do it all – plumbing, electrical, mechanical, working with would or concrete.  There is nothing he couldn’t MacGiver.  I remember watching him wield a hammer one time and I marvelled at it because it was not a man using a tool it was as if the hammer was an extension of his body he was that good.

And therefore I think you couldn’t have written a better ending for him.

He died at one of the places he loves best which was the Home Hardware in Cookstown.  He just sat down in a chair and closed his eyes.  It was quick and peaceful.  Yes they managed to keep his body alive a few more days but his mind, his spirit his sole checked out that day to join mom.

Yes Ross Clements was many things to many people.

And he will be missed…

I love you Dad.

 

There are some people I’d like to thank before we leave here today.

 

Thanks to  Rick at Home Hardware in Cookstown who used CPR to revive Dad.

Thank to the paremedics who worked so valiantly to keep dad with us a little longer.

The medical team at the coronary care unit at Southlake inNewmarketwas absolutely amazing and thanks to them.

Out back on our deck we have a robin’s nest with baby robin’s and this week there was a hawk sitting close by on the clothes line.  He wasn’t there to do his laundry of course he was there for a meal.  The babies went absolutely still and hunkered down in their nest and then they came.  Robin after robin came, dive bombing this hawk to drive it away.  To me that is what Dad’s neighbours were like.  They always looked out for him.  If his truck didn’t show up they were on the phone to us asking if he was ok.  So thank you so much.  Dad lived on his own and it certainly would have been more difficult if not impossible without your help.

Lastly I want to thank you who sent their condolences through email or facebook – and for all of you for coming to day and showing your love and respect for someone who was truly a great man.

I invite all of you to the legion on11 Dufferin street– go out here – turn right then left on Dufferin which is the street before the train tracks.

 Thank you  so much for coming.  We’ll see you at the legion.