This article is from the Toronto Star, a tribute to a dead hockey dad. Very powerful, beauty to read.
Requiem for a hockey dad - by George Gamester
Hey there, Joey and Chris.
How's that Dad Book coming along?
Your mom told us all about it, you know. How she and your aunts are collecting special stuff about your father for a scrapbook. Things to keep him snug and warm in your hearts.
So where should we start with Dad? Hard to think of him without the hockey, eh?
To hear Aunt Joanne tell it, your father, George Munro, was crazy about those Leafs right from the start. Ever hear of Lanny McDonald? Well, he was your dad's first idol. And when he was old enough to grow a moustache, he had a big bushy one, just like Lanny's.
No, your father was never a hockey hero himself. Except in road shinny as a kid on Sapling Cres. in Etobicoke. But he loved the game. And, though his family moved all over Canada because your grandfather was a banker, Dad was always true to his team.
"When we lived in Vancouver," remembers Aunt Joanne, "he'd embarrass me at Canuck games by wearing his Dave Keon #14 sweater and yelling for the Leafs. People in the stands offered to buy him a one-way ticket back to Toronto.
"And watching Saturday night Leaf games on TV, he'd always sit in the same spot on the couch with Buddy the dog, hugging his lucky brown pillow."
Sure, the hockey was a big deal. And we'll get back to that. But the lanky, blue-eyed enthusiast you called Dad had so many more facets to his life ...
Such as Debbie Coady, that sweet-natured accountant from Nova Scotia he met 16 years ago today at a Halloween party. On one of their early dates, she presented him with a bouquet of bird of paradise flowers.
He was moved to tears. How could she know they were his late father's favourite blooms? A year later, they married and settled in your flower-framed Brampton home.
Yes, dad loved his garden. Worked hard at it, too. Just as he did in his management job at National Grocers where he had many friends.
He had a gift for friendship, didn't he? For old pals like T.K., Notley and Joe from Woodlands High in Mississauga, who'd stayed in touch over the years.
And for guys such as Ian and Fern Rob whom he'd known since U of T days who brought their families to join yours on summer camping expeditions all over the province.
But his greatest love, Chris and Joey, was reserved for you. And never was it more evident than these past 18 months.
It began with a bellyache, didn't it? He thought it was just a bad reaction to Easter dinner. But the doctors found it was that awful disease everyone dreads.
And that's when George Munro's life became a medical mess. Surgery. Complications. More tumours. Radiation. Chemotherapy. From the spring of 2003 until last month, it never stopped.
But there were wonderful interludes, too. Precious times when your father was able to enjoy so many memory-building moments with the keepers of the keys to his heart: Debbie, Christine and Joseph.
Which brings us back to the hockey, and that exuberant e-mail he sent last January to your aunt Sharon over in Saudi Arabia, where she works as a nurse.
In it, he confessed: "My favourite thing in the world is to watch my kids play hockey. I'd rather watch them than the Leafs, if you can believe it."
You can believe it, Chris. Because from the time you started playing at age 7, Dad had never missed one of your games or practices.
For a while, before he got sick, he'd even helped coach your tyke team. "And it was a huge thrill," he wrote, "for me to be that close to Chris while she skated."
Then you got into it, Joey, as a defenceman. But though you played very well, Dad figured you had all the skills to become a forward. All you needed to get you started, he figured, was to score a goal.
Remember that cold Saturday morning, Joey? When the new medicine had Dad feeling so lousy he couldn't drive you to the game? He was dozing when he dimly heard you head out for the arena with Mom.
Twenty minutes later he awoke, feeling better. Suddenly, he had this strong urge. He had to get to your game.
Calling on your grandpa for an emergency ride, he gave your mom quite a shock when he suddenly appeared beside her. As he wrote: "I just smiled at her. She understood and put her arm around me."
Minutes later, he recalled. "It happened. "The centre on Joseph's team passed the puck to him at the top of the face-off circle. I yelled `SHOOOT!' at the top of my lungs.
"Joseph's shot found the corner of the net. His first goal! I jumped and cheered. The other parents must have thought I was a lunatic."
"I told Debbie I had to get that puck. I explained to the ref that it was my son's first goal, and could I please have the puck?"
"He replied: `That's a very important goal, that first one,' and handed it to me with a smile."
Later, by the dressing room door, "my son, in a very surprised manner, said `Hi Dad!' He hadn't seen me in the stands. I handed him the puck. I've never seen a bigger grin on a kid."
Yes, that was a special moment. But soon George Munro would bestow an even greater gift on his loved ones.
It came during his last days, resting on that special bed in the family room. "He could hardly move," Debbie recalls. "But if he rolled one way, he could see all his favourite flowers we'd moved close to the window. Looking the other way, he could see the visitors who'd come to say goodbye.
In his final hours on Saturday, Sept. 18, he was not alone. Debbie, Christine and Joseph were by his side, holding hands with him and one another.
And when he took his final breath, at 10:10 p.m., says Debbie, "he gave us all such a powerful gift."
How so?
"To see him take that last breath, with a total absence of fear, was a moment the kids will never forget. It will give them strength in the future.
"Death is so sanitized these days, most people don't have this opportunity. You cannot understand the power of it until you've experienced it.
"Afterward, we were able to stay beside him, to hold hands, to talk." It seemed right.
And there was more comfort to come. For Dad had planned everything. At the funeral home, where Debbie and the children greeted a stream of friends and family for five hours, George lay at rest in his favourite garment — an authentic #17 Leaf jersey autographed by Wendel Clark.
Beside him, proudly displayed, was another official NHL jersey autographed by the entire Leaf team, presented to him on his 44th and final birthday by his sister Joanne.
Nearby, a battered hockey puck in a glass case bearing this label:
Joseph's First Goal. Jan 31, 2004.
And overhead and all around, soft organ music he'd selected to greet family and friends.
"Margaritaville" by Jimmy Buffet. A selection of Sinatra classics. And Tom Cochrane's "Life is a Highway."
"That," recalls Joanne with a smile, "was so George."
And, when you think about it, so was his timing. At the Sept. 22 funeral at a packed St. Jerome's Church on Chinguacousy Rd., a number of his sports-minded buddies noted how unhappy he was with NHL's lockout-lost season.
Passing away at 10:10 on a Saturday night seemed symbolic to them. For that's about the time broadcasts of Leaf home games at the Air Canada Centre often wrap up. That particular Saturday was also to be Joey's season-opening game with his Minor Peewee team in the Brampton Youth Hockey Association.
Well, he didn't make that game. But he played the following week — when the coach moved him from defence to centre. And wouldn't you know it? Joey scored a big goal.
Listen ... Can you hear the cheering?
