My
father died peacefully on Friday evening, around 10:45pm, some fifteen months
after he’d been diagnosed with als, and nearly a decade after my mother [see my obituary for her here]. Never mind the prior colon cancer surgeries, or the
triple bypass; the diabetes, sleep apnea or even the prior diagnoses of multiple
sclerosis. I’d always figured his laundry-list of health issues over the past
decade or so would have meant he’d finally die of something completely
unrelated, such as a meteor, or sink-hole. But he showed me, I suppose. As his official obituary reads:
Peacefully surrounded by
his family on Friday, May 1, 2020. Douglas Ian McLennan of Maxville; age 78
years. Beloved husband of the late Joanne
Irene McLennan (nee Page). Loving father
of Rob McLennan (Christine McNair) of Ottawa, and Kathy McLennan (Corey
Derochie) of Maxville. Cherished
grandfather of Kate Seguin-McLennan, Emma, Rory and Duncan Derochie, and Rose
and Aoife McLennan. Dear son of the late
John Duncan and Ellen McLennan (nee Campbell).
As expressions of
sympathy Memorial Donations to the ALS Society would be appreciated by the
family. As a Memorial to Douglas a tree
will be planted in a Memory Woods.
Condolences may be made online at www.munromorris.com
He
aimed to die in the farmhouse, but actually died at the neighbour’s house,
given the furnace in the farmhouse literally exploded two weeks’ prior. There was
an evacuation and a professional service come through to clean every inch of
every single thing in the house (which means the farmhouse is the cleanest it
might ever have been), and they were only given the ‘all clear’ from the insurance
company to move back in on the day he died. He was close enough, I think. And he
enjoyed, I was told, finding out how fast his new wheelchair could go when they
moved him and his equipment (the hospital bed on the front end loader of the
tractor) next door. Apparently he really opened up that chair once he got to
the road. Given our current pandemic, there couldn’t be much of an in-person
service, but there will be an online component as part of it, for all of those unable
to attend. Here are the notes I put together for the Thursday morning service
(which will be live-streamed via YouTube link, apparently), which of course will be
be cut down considerably for time:
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| November 1941 |
Our
father, Douglas Ian McLennan, was born in the log house on the hill along McDonald’s
Grove, Concession 8, Roxborough, at 4:10am on June 26th, 1941. He was our grandparents’
second child, born eighteen months after an unnamed daughter who died within a
day. The Ottawa Citizen printed a one-line obituary for “Baby Girl McLennan,”
September 1939, and our father always claimed no knowledge of her. Our great-aunt
Jesse said it was the only time she ever saw our grandfather cry.
Given
the loss, our father might have been both miracle and a relief to our
grandparents, Johnny and Ellen. John Duncan, or “Johnny,” was the youngest of four
boys and three girls, so when he married in 1935, he moved from the McLennan
homestead where he and his siblings were born. Our grandparents moved directly
across the road from the McLennan property, a dairy farm that he still operated
with his brother Scott, into the log house on the hill, a property of 160 acres
that Johnny and Scott had purchased in 1934.
When
our father was eight months old, Johnny moved his small family to the farm next
to the original McLennan homestead, and this is where my father would spend the
rest of his life. This is the only house he’s ever known, although one could say
he knew a couple of neighbouring houses nearly as well. Growing up, he was
surrounded by family, with uncles and aunts within walking distance, and some older
cousins, whether Weldon and Eileen on Cameron Road, or Jule and Audrey, who
regularly made visits with their parents from their home in Ottawa. He was the
baby of his small cluster of cousins. He worked with his father. He rode his
bicycle along the dirt roads. He had a dog that, due to an accident, had only
three legs, still bounding happily across the fields and over machinery. By Dad’s
teenaged years, the Jensens had purchased the original McLennan farm, and he found
a life-long friend in Kris, the two boys taking turns slipping through the opening
in the fence between their farmhouses.
Our
parents met in 1965. She was a townie, living with her family in the south end
of Alta Vista, then still a relatively-new Ottawa suburb. This was in the days before
Highway 417 was completed, back when the drive from the farm to the city would
have been three and a half hours. His mother didn’t drive, which meant he spent
much of his twenties accompanying his father into the Ottawa Civic for
radiation treatments. All of this, I’m sure, done without a single complaint.
Our
parents met through friends as part of Bible Camp. Kris Jensen was engaged to a
girl from Ottawa, and his fiancé was, and still is, best friends with my mother’s
younger sister, Pam. It was a three-and-a-half hour drive for my father to
court my mother. There is a story I heard from before they were married, of my
father assisting the Page family on Christmas Eve. He helped my mother at her
family home, assembling toys for my cousins to wake up to as part of their
stockings, before finally driving back to the farm late enough that he made it
just in time to do morning chores.
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| leaving her parents' house on their wedding day |
At
some point, my mother caught scarlet fever while babysitting, which had begun to
affect her kidneys. By 1967, she was told she had three months to two years to
live, prompting Dad to respond that he loved her, and was going to marry her
anyway. I can’t imagine him saying any of that aloud. I can barely imagine him
thinking it. They married in 1967, and she managed twenty-two years on dialysis
before her third kidney transplant in 2000, which allowed her another decade,
outliving her original prognosis by more than forty years.
A
three and a half hour drive.
Once
our parents were married, his parents moved to a bungalow on Highland Road, just
north of St. Elmo. Dad said it didn’t matter where his parents lived, his father
still came over every day. They were unable to have children of their own, due
to Mum’s ongoing medical issues, which led to my arrival in January 1971, at
ten months old, and Kathy’s arrival in June 1976, at two months.
 |
| at the extended mclennan family reunion, 1974 |
He
was considerate, but inattentive. Our parents had two children, but he didn’t know
when our birthdays were. After Mum died, Dad told me that between Kathy and I,
he knew one of us was in March, and the other in April, but he had no idea which.
He
provided an example of self-motivation, organization and self-discipline. He rose
before dawn every morning to begin the work that needed to be done, as daily,
monthly and seasonal demands of the farm required, milking between thirty and
forty head of Holstein, and maintaining three hundred and ninety-five acres of
land. He provided an example of being the best there was at what he did, including
constructing his own buildings and machinery as needed, and providing
assistance to anyone who might have required it. And knowing the difference
between what he could do, and what you hire someone else to do. He was
presented with a leadership award in the early 1970s for his years in 4-H, and
spent the whole of his life donating money to a variety of charities, more than
I could count. He was active in the church, and in his community. And yet, his lessons,
at least to me, were never straightforward. If he were attempting to teach you
how to do something, he would either lose patience and do it himself, or micromanage,
something I was reminded of repeatedly over his last six or eight months. I remember
responding to one of the neighbours when I was four years old that I had no
intention of farming, but I wonder how much of a factor might also have been
our inability to approach each other. And yet, how I do what I do now, from the
approach to work and the considerations of community, is so deeply rooted in
the example he presented.
 |
| at seventy-one, with Kathy |
To
learn from him, one often had to take a step back, and pay attention to the
bigger picture. He was the first to offer a neighbour assistance, just as they
were realizing they might have needed it, although never with pressure or
presumption. He plowed multiple driveways every winter, and was always receiving
friends in our yard who sought his expertise to fix some broken part or another.
When Cameron McGregor was no longer able to take in his own hay in the later
1980s, it was our father who took it on, along with his hired man and myself,
with Cameron doing whatever he could, despite his eighty-odd years. During the
ice storm of 1998, our father hooked the generator up to the tractor and the Hydro
line, providing three weeks’ worth of electricity my parents’ wouldn’t have had
otherwise (for her dialysis machine and the milking equipment). He’d owned it
for years, and apparently Mum had teased him for it. She stopped bothering him
about it then. And throughout the days of blackout, he moved from neighbour-to-neighbour
with the tractor and generator, providing a couple of hours each for heat and a
hot meal before he moved to the next house, finally making it home in time for his
evening chores. His was an example of the glue that helped keep a community together.
If you could do something, you offered it. If you required the help, there
would always be someone nearby who knew how, and could help in their way.
 |
| with his father |
They
spent $1,500 on fuel to keep that generator running during those three weeks immediately
following the ice storm. Our mother’s only inconvenience during those three
weeks, which she did complain about, was having to sleep on the other side of
the house, given the tractor was running all night outside their bedroom
window.
He
was easygoing, but it often took some doing to prompt him to laugh, speak or
get angry. Going through dozens of photographs of him after he’d died, it was
nearly impossible find one where he wasn’t looking away from the camera,
whether down or to the side. The photograph included in the obituary is from 2012,
as I prepared to get married. We were still an hour or two from the ceremony, as
my piper, best man and I were gathering, captured by our official photographer.
I think I’d finally chastised him for not actually looking happy, or at the
camera, which made him chuckle. Oh, for god’s sake, Dad. He was someone
who was quietly, steadfastly there, not wishing to announce himself or be in
the way. He was strong in his beliefs, but humble in their application. Our father
emerged from a strong willed mother to marry a strong willed wife, yet he didn’t
care for direct conflict. It would take an awful lot for him to be pushed to
complain, or step in. During one of his hospital stays last year, it even took
some convincing from us to inform the nurses that if he complained of pain at
all, it was because the pain was quite bad, and he required painkillers.
 |
| September 2012, prior to our wedding |
 |
| 2019, driving through the back fields |
After
he sold the farm, he offered sizeable amounts of money to both Kathy and myself
without as much as a further word, whether a suggestion of how to spend it, or
any question of how we had. He could offer it – so he did. It was a sign of
trust. He didn’t interfere, or prod. I always found him confusing to interact
with, playing his cards so close to the chest that you couldn’t even tell if he
was participating, or how much he took in, until he spoke. I suspect I overthought
it. Who he was he always kept in plain view; one simply had to be attentive.
Fifteen
months ago, he was handed a diagnoses of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, after
already having gone through surgery for colon cancer, a triple bypass and a diagnosis
of Multiple Sclerosis that he had most likely already endured for more than a
decade. Earlier on, he developed sleep apnea and diabetes, both of which forced
him to move from dairy farming to cash crop in 2000, before he was unable to
even do that anymore. He was used to doing everything himself at his own speed
in his own way, but managed to handle all of these difficulties with grace. After
his ALS diagnosis, his only insistence was that he die at home, refusing to go
into hospital. I don’t think he really understood how much of that was even
possible without the enormous amount of work Kathy put into his care. He occasionally
told me just how much he appreciated her, and how great her kids—Emma, Rory and
Duncan—were to him, but in hindsight, I suspect he didn’t say much to her about
this. I don’t know if he could. He wasn’t exactly one to emote his feelings,
and I suspect our mother spoke enough that it allowed him his silence, where he
may have been most comfortable.
 |
| from their honeymoon : the botanical gardens, hamilton |
There
were multiple times over the past couple of years that doctors had told us to
go in to say goodbye to him and he’d somehow reemerge, albeit a bit weaker each
time. Acting as though nothing had happened. A few weeks before he’d died, his
bowel nearly ruptured. His doctor expected it within a day or so of seeing him,
and yet, he made it through, and was back in his chair in the living room,
poking at his tablet and in front of the television, as though nothing had occurred.
He was where he wished to be, and was able to be.
He
was a consummate gardener, much like his mother. When Christine and I were
married in 2012, he grew all our flowers, and refused anything in return. He took
photographs of rainbows, including the occasional double-rainbow over the
property. He would get excited about rainbows. He maintained birdfeeders for
multiple birds, able to watch for hummingbirds by the front step, and blue jays,
cardinals and orioles by the back porch, through the kitchen window. He was a
good man, and a fair man: the first things anyone would say about him. He cared
deeply about his family. I shall miss his quiet, distracted, resoluteness. I am
wishing I had paid better attention.
