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A
Celebration
of
the Life of
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When I first met Roy and Sylvia 27 years
ago, Sylvia greeted me with exuberance and lots of conversation. Roy
on the other hand didn't say much, if anything, and after some delay
he quietly smiled. I came to realize over the years that those brief
and often delayed responses were always worth the wait. Roy had an
ability to stay quietly calm and carefully process information from
all angles which helped him understand complex subject matter, like
physics. He had the right mind and temperment for the job.
He used those abilities at home too. He
was a do-it-yourselfer and together he and Sylvia designed and
developed 2 cottages and a house, which was a passive solar house
built in 1960 years before the sustainable development movement. And
his design really worked.
Growing up on a farm and poor, he learned
how to figure out how stuff worked and how to fix or build things
using the resources at-hand. This is why their basement was so full of
stuff -- you never know when you might need it. He also used these
abilities in caring for Sylvia at home for 5 years after her stroke.
They say that some people are all flash
and no substance. I would say the opposite is true for Roy -- he wasn't
flashy but he was a person of substance. When I remember him, I'll
picture that quiet smile. |
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