Shawn Kerwin’s eulogy, May 31, 2014

It is an honour to talk about Jean at this occasion. While I know that we will all miss Jean, and so many dinner parties will be a bit quieter, I also know that Jean lead an amazing, rich and full life. She will always set a high standard for the rest of us to aim for in our own lives. We all have wonderful memories of Jean and these will no doubt, help to begin new dinner parties.

In my own life, Jean represented the very best in her love of so many things. She loved Canada. She loved William Morris. She loved native plants, creating so many beautiful drawings and watercolours. She loved Captain Marvel, a gin and tonic, the cats Chiquita and Chico, Victor Tinkle’s garden fountain, sitting on committees, the Merton Gallery, the silliness of the Academy Awards, every new citizenship ceremony she ever attended, her collection of Kai Chan pieces, Harbourfront and its craft studio that she championed for so many years, and so much more. She was a heroic and unstoppable force in her love of Canadian craft. And she loved so many of the people in this room.

Her soul was generous, her heart was open and her spirit was adventurous. And how lucky we have been to share in her life.

One of my favourite memories of Jean was when I was invited to a dinner party in her home. Guests were setting out plates of incredible food, wine was being poured, and everyone was having a jolly time. However, Jean was upstairs in bed with a very large cast on her leg. Somehow she had managed to throw a dinner party even though she could not make it to the table. We all took turns taking plates of food and glasses of wine up to her. All in all, everyone had a marvelous time, regardless of what floor they were on.

Today is a different kind of party but she is with us here as much as ever. It struck me that not only could we celebrate Jean today, but, in the spirit of her eternal optimism, I would like to pass on an idea. Jean loved her garden and many of us benefitted from bulbs and cuttings, which were harvested when the garden needed thinning out. In my case, it included some of her beloved snowdrops. I started to think – what if every one of us, who has ever taken a bit of Jean’s garden, now in turn, took our own bulbs and cuttings, and planted them, guerilla garden style, somewhere unexpected. We could think of Jean’s garden as ever expanding throughout the city she called home. If you were ever walking along a street and saw a bunch of snowdrops or a cluster of coreopsis growing in an unlikely spot, you could always imagine that they had come from Jean’s garden. Genus Galanthus could simply be JJ Galanthus.

I think she might like that.