In our hearts, we know: the only certainty in life is death. It comes for every one of us.

The uncertainty of the hour of death is also a source of grief in our lives, someone said, and they’re indisputably right. That death is coming, on whispering feet, and we know not when.

For many years, science – and people themselves, making wiser decisions about what to put in their bodies – has pushed back the tide of death. The years between 1916 and 1920 were notable for that: following the first Great War, people just started living longer.  

Babies born in England or Wales had a life expectancy of just 41 years back then.  Their descendants now routinely live into their Eighties. China and India have recorded the fastest gains in life expectancy of any societies in recorded history, and they have the economies to prove it: a hundred years ago, their people would have been lucky to survive past their late twenties.  Now, in India, the average is 70 years.

Since the great global influenza pandemic a Century ago, life expectancies have actually doubled.  The reasons why are myriad and multiple: defeating cholera with better water and sewage systems; embracing pasteurization to kill bacteria in foods, saving billions of lives; the discovery of antibiotics, to slow and kill the growth of bacteria in our bodies; the development of vaccines to fight polio and measles and more.

We collectively live, then, in an era where few before us have lived as long.  While we have not defeated death, we have greatly delayed his arrival at our doors.

In Canada, while we live among the longest in the world, death has naturally continued to claim us in different ways.  Before the Covid-19 pandemic commenced in earnest, the leading cause of death, year after year, was what is called “malignant neoplasms” – cancerous tumors.

Diseases of the heart come next, and the cerebrovascular afflictions – strokes, mainly.  Respiratory diseases and influenzas after that.  And so on.

The pandemic revised the list, everywhere. In New York, just next door, life expectancy dropped by about five full years in 2020, the dark year when the coronavirus was in full bloom.  There, the death rate doubled what it had been the previous year.  Across in the US, life expectancy went from 79 years to 76.

In Canada, lives were cut shorter, too, but not by nearly as much.  However, Covid became one of death’s grim medallists in Canada, beaten out only by cancer and heart diseases.  And, globally – because Covid laughed at the notion of borders – seven million people were killed by it. Another 700 million got it, and about 100 million are still dealing with it, their lives upended by long Covid.

Covid death counts have largely faded from view, and people have mostly gone back to believing that they will not experience something like that again.  But, generally, the odds are pretty good (30 per cent, they say) there’ll be another pandemic in the next decade or so: the ubiquitousness of international travel, and the stupidity of humans, practically guarantees it.

But, even if we somehow escape death from an unseen virus, we all – right now, this week – face another existential threat: the world is getting dramatically hotter.  You don’t need to be a scientist to notice. And, at this stage, it doesn’t matter whether we did it to ourselves, or it’s the result of some preordained Biblical event – it’s well underway, and no one seems to know how to stop it.

So, we in the media report records being broken until no one is shocked enough to pay attention anymore, and a Texas woman (insincerely) claims to bake a loaf of bread in her mailbox: it’s become the stuff of bathos.

The reality is that a hotter planet will continue to affect the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat and the shelter we seek. Smart people, educated people, say that the future will include wars over water, and the mass displacement of people seeking food and refuge from the heat.

So, yes: in the hundred years since World War I, we have delayed – but never denied – death.  Sooner or later, death comes for us all.  It is relentless.

And, this week, he came for my mother, Lorna, who lived a long and wonderful life. We love her and we will miss her, always.

But death always prevails in the end.  And it always breaks your heart.

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KINSELLA, Lorna Emma Bridget. Artist, loving mother, grandmother and wife. Born in Montreal, July 7, 1932; died in Toronto, Ont., July 15, 2023. Daughter of Irene (Danaher) Cleary; survived by loving sister Saundra Cleary; pre-deceased by cherished siblings Eddie, Mickey, Carol, Gail and Irene.

Married T. Douglas Kinsella MD, CM, the one and true love of her life, in Montreal on June 18, 1955; thereafter followed fifty wonderful years of marriage, until his untimely death on June 15, 2004.

Hero to her four boys: Warren, Kevin, Lorne and Troy. Beloved grandmother to Emma, Benjamin, Samuel, Jacob and Kane; missed greatly by her daughters-in-law Annette (LaFaver) and Barbara (Joy).

Lorna was an artist of renown, her works seen in homes and galleries across Canada. She taught art and loved art; she gardened; she donated her time and energy to the homeless and Ukrainian relief and more. We love her and miss her already.

Funeral Mass will take place at 11 a.m. on Friday, July 21 at Corpus Christi Roman Catholic Church, 1810 Queen Street East in Toronto. In lieu of flowers, we respectfully request donations to the Ukrainian Red Cross or the Salvation Army.

FORTIS IN ARDUIS.

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Tonight's Yeats. The final night, I think. pic.twitter.com/tT3TjmEF1M

— Warren Kinsella (@kinsellawarren) July 14, 2023

 

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Like, OMG.

Like, Swifties check this out: the president of Canada, Justin Whatsisface – who is kind of super hot for a Dad, right? – has sort of slid into Taylor’s DMs on Twitter! Like, is that dope, or what?

Here’s what President Hottie wrote:

“It’s me, hi. I know places in Canada would love to have you. So, don’t make it another cruel summer. We hope to see you soon.”

LOL! Isn’t that lit? It was so flex! It broke the Internet! Like, Justin quoted lines from Taylor’s own songs to get her attention, and to get her to tour in Canada! He’s cute AND he’s super smart!

Now, not all of my BFFs agree. We were doing Netflix and chilling, like, and we were all spilling the tea and stuff. And I showed President Trudeau’s tweet to one friend, and she was like all: “Swerve, girl. Not cool. Shouldn’t he be running the state of Canada, or whatevs?”

OMG! That was salty, but I get it. I mean, he probably shouldn’t be stalking Taylor on social media using taxpayer money and all that, but it still was sort of kind of sick. I mean, Taylor is the GOAT!

I showed it to another friend in my squad, and she wrinkled her nose, and I love it when she does that! She’s so extra! Anyway, she said: “Okay, Boomer. Such a noob, he is. Such a tool. An older married guy shouldn’t flex at Taylor like that. WTF! She should ghost him, totes.”

She called President Justy a stan, too, which is like a fan who is like over the top. It’s cheugy, y’know? Like, he’s trying too hard. I get it, LOL.

Anyhoo, I still wasn’t sure, so I showed my Mom, because she’s cool even though she’s super ancient, like Justin. She said he was being a bit of a troll, which is pretty on fleek. (That means “on point,” oldsters.)

My Mom: “This reminds me of the time that the Mayor of Toronto wrote a letter to the Spice Girls asking them to reunite. Except this is a lot worse. Doesn’t Prime Minister Trudeau have anything better to do with his time?

“I mean, most of his provinces are on fire, he’s got a recession coming, and people are wondering if China is secretly in charge of his government, and his big priority is getting Taylor Swift to come to Canada?”

YAAAAS! Nice clap back, Mom! That was fire! But Justin is, like, quiche – he’s hotter than hot, and he loves Taylor! Justin loves Taylor, because duh! Like, who doesn’t?

Mom shook her head again.

“Honey, do you remember that time your gym teacher started commenting on the pictures you and your friends post on Instagram?”

“Totes, Mom. That was weird.”

“So is this, honey. He’s an older, professional man, and he’s tweeting at Taylor Swift to get her attention? Seriously? It’s not sliding into her DMs, or sending a pic of, well, you know, but it’s still inappropriate. There’s a word for it, in fact.”

“Whats the word, Mom?”

“Creepy, dear.”

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Iggy Pop. Not the other Iggy.

Ian Davey and I didn’t become friends, you see, because of politics. We became friends because of music.

His sister, Catherine, had told me about her brother, and how I needed to meet him. We’d get along like a house on fire, she’d said.

I was unconvinced. Ian, I knew, was one of a small group of guys trying to persuade Michael Ignatieff to come back to Canada and save the Liberal Party. I wasn’t so sure about Ignatieff, or that the Liberal Party needed saving. I’d had my fill of the federal Liberal Party, by then.

But I adored Catherine, and I had been close to his dad, the truly legendary Liberal political guru Sen. Keith Davey. So I agreed to meet with Ian Davey.

He came to see me. It was 2008 or so. He was a tall guy, good-looking, and he had an engaging, affable manner. Easy to like.

And we talked about music.

Sure, we talked about politics, too. He made his pitch, saying I needed to come back to the Liberal Party, which I had left in disgust during the Paul Martin era. He said Ignatieff would become Liberal leader, and they needed me to run his war room, as I had done for Jean Chretien’s campaigns. I demurred.

But, mostly, we talked about music.

Ian knew all about the punk scene I had grown up in because he had grown up in it, too. At clubs along Queen Street West, he had seen many of the bands I’d loved, back in the day. I told him Iggy Pop was God, not the Iggy he was recruiting, and he had laughed and agreed.

And so, over many talks and many days, Ian Davey slowly but surely brought me back to the Liberal Party. It wasn’t Michael Ignatieff who did that: When Ian finally convinced me to meet with Ignatieff, the once and future Harvard professor struck me as an academic who thought politics would be easy, like a sabbatical in France.

Politics wasn’t easy, but Ian Davey was. He led the effort to bring the Liberals back to the political centre, and to install Michael Ignatieff as the party’s leader. He attracted dozens of amazing people along the way — Mark Sakamoto, Sachin Aggarwal, Alexis Levine, Jill Fairbrother (who would later marry Ian).

As Ian had predicted, I did become Ignatieff’s war room chief, for a while. But when Ignatieff fired Ian and scores of others in 2009 — stupidly, callously — I had no interest in remaining.

“That’s not how you treat the people who got you the job,” one former prime minister said to me, when I called for advice. So I quit, telling Ian that if he wasn’t there, I didn’t want to be, either.

So, Ian and I remained friends, and we both watched — with a mixture of schadenfreude and bemusement — as Ignatieff and his new gang of super-smart advisors led the Liberal Party of Canada to its worst showing in history. Third place, behind Jack Layton’s NDP.

The last time I saw Ian was at my birthday party. I can’t believe I’m so old, I told him.

“Iggy Pop is a lot older, and he’s still kicking ass,” Ian said, and we laughed.

He got the cancer diagnosis not long after that, and we couldn’t see each other during the pandemic. I told him he and Jill needed to come see me at my new home in Prince Edward County, and we’d go hunting for old vinyl. He said he’d come.

He never got the chance. My great friend Ian Davey died just before Canada Day, too soon, still a young man. A dad, a husband, a friend. I cannot believe he is gone.

I will play some Iggy Pop stuff today, and remember Ian Davey.

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