Ian was indeed a person that always greeted you with a smile, along with a knowing kind twinkle in his eye, and a legendary hug.

One of my first and favourite memories as an elementary school kid, who was often paying more attention to looking out the classroom window, than at the teacher or the lessons, waiting for that blessed bell to ring, was a sudden strange rustling in the large evergreen tree outside the window, that usually stayed quite still at all hours, even in windy weather. It was really something to see it moving like that, especially way up on the second floor classroom, where we sat. Before long, other more studious kids noticed too, and speculated as to what kind of animal might be inside there, creating all that commotion. Before long, all eyes were on that treetop.

Soon a face appeared out of the tree to look in and greet us all sitting at our desks. Who’s that? somebody blurted. That’s Ian! I announced. The teacher ran out of our room and Ian likely took some heat for his antics, but we were all in full joy from this impossible intrusion.

Thank You Ian for being a guy who always quickly relived us of our boredoms, not afraid even of being a bit silly even to take any unneeded seriousness out of things, and always giving us the great gift of laughter, right up to his last minute.

God gives us the darkness, so we can see the stars, and your star will always shine with great magnitude. Shine on you crazy Diamond!

Uncle Paul