Dr. Mackenzie

I have to thank my good friend Daniel Anthony "the Kosmo" Leaver for passing me on the news article of the death of Dr. James "Jim" Mackenzie, a descendant of Canada's 2nd Prime Minister Alexander Mackenzie.

On this day, Thursday, November 19, 2009 at approximately 5am Jim, who I came to know as Dr. Mackenzie, died at age 79.  Nobody will ever know the depth of gratitude I have for that man and his wonderfully loving family, which includes Liz Mackenzie who is a United Church of Canada minister and gold star student from Emmanuel College at the University of Toronto.

In my years as a troubled teen, trying to figure out why I hated the world, I spent my Saturdays working for Dr. Mackenzie doing all sorts of things from mowing his lake-front property lawn to tearing down his old shed and spending 10 years to build a combined workshop and summer house/loft for his grandchildren to sleep in.  We'd work in the heat and in the rain and even into the cold of winter trying to teach ourselves how to become Canada's version of Bob Vila.

Though Jim was a surgeon, he and I were probably the world's worst carpenters.  You should have seen us attempt to build a level base for the new workshop - we later found out when we were trying to build the second level that the beams we had cemented into the ground weren't as straight as we had thought when they had first gone in the week or two before.  But we continued to tinker away at things.  I think Jim enjoyed my company because I just blabbered on and on trying to figure out the world.  He was the one trying to loosen me up; helping me to figure out that you should take the world seriously - but not too seriously - because everything isn't as black and white as it appears.

In the summer we would try to work every single day for 8 or more hours and we'd come in at lunch and Jim's Icelandic wife Alda would have just the most wonderfully made ham sandwiches made for us along with a refreshing glass of lemonade.  We would continue to chat as we ate lunch together and sometime before dinner time I would go home and I'd come back the next day and we'd do it over again.

Over the years I would become part of the household and share in different anniversaries of Jim and Alda and share dinner with them when their own children and grandchildren came to visit.  The hospitality was as generous as I'd ever seen.

I think the best part about Jim and Alda was their house on the lake.  At some point in the past the house had been the Watford train station - you know, when the train stopped at every little junction between Sarnia and London - and it was eventually sold and moved to Jim and Alda's property with a basement added on.  So the house actually was funny because it sat right next door to a monster house on the east side.  You know those little old train stations - they weren't that big.

The biggest project Jim and I were involved in was the tear-down of his old shed - it meant de-shingling the roof and systematically tearing the wooden frame apart and cleaning up the property around that and then attempting to build a workshop and loft in its place.  We began all of that in the summer of 1999 and last time I checked, the electrical was just getting put in - so it only took 10 years to get us to that point.  I was really involved from 1999 until my second or third year of undergraduate studies at the University of Waterloo and then the teenage boys who lived next-door to Jim began helping out and when I would arrive back in Sarnia and visit him he would take me through everything that they had done since the last time I had been there.

I don't really know how to express my deep, deep sorrow for Dr. Mackenzie's death and that's why I write.  I called his house today to hear the news firsthand and realized that I had no words to describe the depth of love I have for Dr. Mackenzie.  There are no words that could describe how troubled my soul is on this day.  All I can do now is look back on the day and say, "Thank God it rained" for there exist not enough tears in my body to weep for this blessed man who is now counted with the Communion of Saints.

Through Christ, with Christ, and in Christ

In the unity of the Holy Spirit

And by the vision of the Master

Who was, who is, and who is to come

I commend this witness into the world

Just beyond the grasp of finitude...Amen