Massey College in the University of Toronto in an extraordinary collegial community. Modelled on All Souls Oxford, it elects Senior Fellows from across the Academy and also from the broader Community.   My friend Ken and I were elected to the Fellowship on the same day a few years back, the two of us lawyers among other things, and both us with  deeply felt connections to Oxbridge.   Ken embraced Massey with a commitment that marked most everything he touched, and he did all of us proud.

I learned this week that Ken has entered the final stage of his life’s journey. I had known he was ill, so I was not shocked, but then one is always shocked.  Ken is one of  the most measured and even tempered men I have ever known.  He has always been a good physical shape and he worked out regularly. He is one of the few people I know who really embraced a balanced life style, and at times I envied him that balance. His love of his family was forever  apparent, and it was only a year ago that I sat with him at the annual Oxford Cambridge Gala and met his daughters.

There was little obvious disorder and no emotional explosiveness in Ken. Unlike me,he had a monastic calmness and peace about him that one could never miss.  It made you feel good to be in his presence.  He is almost decade younger than me, and yes, I wonder about the justice of it all.   Then again I accept the mystery that is life and death, and feel humbled by all of it.  Today I am both sad and grateful to have walked briefly alongside a truly good man nearing the end of his pilgrimage.