A life well lived.

You never know when you are in university that the people you meet and volunteer with – will become friends for your whole life.

And in that life you will, if you are fortunate, get to see the two people who are ahead of you in life’s stages.

The two people who are the parents of your friend.

You might be able to learn important lessons from the close proximity of your own parents as they face life’s many challenges.

With the separateness that defines you as both an outsider, but one with a special VIP pass to observing a family that you are not a part of – you see with clarity and a particular appreciation the mother and father of your friend.

Because over the course of decades, well 38 years since you first met, you get to see how adults who are successful in their life conduct themselves. How they treat others. How they treat each other. And perhaps most impressively how they make a life together when things are not easy.

In the last few years, I have had the privilege of hearing the stories of my friend’s mom who had come to Canada ( as my own mom did, although under different circumstances) and to place into my limited knowledge of European history her story. Which is the result of the Russians walking into a country that was not their own. What that means to leave a sophisticated life with café’s and saving money to attend the opera, to come to a country for the love of a man who promised you a life, and that life together began in a remote logging camp in British Columbia in the 1950’s.

In the last few years a cruel disease, Parkinsons’ has taken from Frank more than one knew one had.

Every day the sophisticated Canadian woman from Budapest has driven across town to feed him, to relay stories, to share how their children who live far away are doing.

To be the conduit from a hospital where one’s body cannot function but one’s mind is sharp to the outside world which continues to change with the seasons.

Where the trees outside your window go from bare branches to those covered in new leaves of chartreuse, to full green leaves, and then begin to change colour and finally when they reach brown, they dry out and fall to the ground when the wind decides.

This cycle happens three times until one day when there are no leaves, but the winter sun is shining bright- it is the end.

The peaceful end, hand in hand.

She walked him all the way to the doorway of home.

It is a privilege to have known a couple who have raised a wonderful family with children who are successful in all the ways of being good humans in the world.

I have an admiration for such a fine couple. I wonder if I would be as brave as they have been. I do not question if I would have the stamina to be in her shoes- I know I do have that for the man that I love, although I hope life doesn’t take me to a place where I would know that for sure.

When I have passed by that hospital on my way to the grocery store and I am complaining to myself or even feeling sorry for myself for some reason- I think of Frank who never complained about his state in that hospital.

Just like my own Dad – he never felt sorry for himself when he would have every right to in the injustice of the whole thing.

He was always grateful for everything his family did for him.

Perhaps that is the greatest kindness, as Victor Frankel says in his essay about a man who does not want to wake the doctor in the middle of the night – and the doctor reads that as his kindness, his meaning even when there isn’t much there to give.

Maybe in this way Frank Nyers still provided for his family, only this was a more telling gift of his role as husband and father, it was the greatest gift he could have given in his life at this stage- it was his kindness with gratitude.

Our lives have intertwined in lovely ways over all of these years and in all of it…and perhaps this is one of the greatest gifts of true friendship- few can make me laugh the way they do.

Yesterday I attended Frank Nyers’ funeral and afterwards the gathering at the Hungarian Centre.

All of his family flew in from all over and his friends from this wonderful community met in a small Catholic Church on a warm sunny afternoon.

And then an unexpected thing happened at the celebration in a room with long tables on either side of a very long line of narrow tables laden with all the foods one could imagine.

I sat with my friend’s friends from university.

Some of these people I knew well and others not, and for the next couple of hours I got to share stories of my current creative life and hear the stories of their own creativity and what fed their desire to write the novel and take the pottery class and join a band.

We all have one thing in common- we had been volunteers alongside our formal university education.

We had written for the paper, been members of the Women’s Centre, the Campus Community radio station, been elected members of the Student’s Union. We had learned such valuable lessons about the way the world works and our contribution to it.

And I realized as I was sitting there that those were the skills and lessons that led us through the challenges that everyone faces: the terminally ill parent, the disability, the divorce, the demanding work life (and in my case the loss of a child).

Although I hadn’t seen some of these wonderful people since we were in our twenties- besides our mutual friend, we had something else in common: we are led by our curiosity to navigate our life and the result has become an interesting life for each of us. I think that is one definition of leading a creative life.

We are interested in the world; we contribute in the world; continue to inform ourselves about how the world is working; we are open to always learning more and perhaps this is an element of our volunteerism- we know how to show up.

There is a richness in the conversation that results and an appreciation for the insights shared that I will not soon forget.

The gift of this experience and the one of decades of friendship came because someone had to flee and come to Canada to build a life.

Like so many Canadians, this has been and continues to be the beginning of the story.

When a life is lived well as Frank showed us, it is just the beginning. The rest comes in living  with clear values of hard work, service to community, with love and respect for one’s family and friends, oh and perhaps a few decades of competitive tennis.

I wish you peace on your path,

Lise-Lotte