photo by Steve McIntosh, Thanksgiving, 2009

VERITY, Sylvia Helen Scott (formerly McIntosh, née Golman)

2 May 1930-27 February 2010

We held a celebration of Sylvia’s life on 2 May 2010, which would have been her 80^th birthday, at the Dancing Bean Café in downtown Chemainus, 9752 Willow Street. Thank you to all who were able to attend. Below is her obituary, followed by a couple of links to more photos, and some quotations.

Sylvia died in her sleep after a brief illness. Many people will miss her, including her husband, Russ Dewar, and her children, Jill (Phil Hanson), Paul, Graham, and Steve (Michelle) McIntosh, and her grandsons, Nathan and Hayden McIntosh, and numerous close friends. We would be remiss not to mention, too, all her “critters,” tame and wild.

Sylvia also leaves behind a legacy of art. Her work celebrated and revered the natural world and the human spirit, and she would want those who love her to take solace in beauty and to nurture love and appreciation.

There will be a celebration of her life in Chemainus on 2 May, which would have been her 80^th birthday. Details are posted above. If you have any questions, you may call 250-246-9675 or 604-461-7923, or you may email jillmc@sfu.ca

In lieu of flowers, a donation to the SPCA or a charity of your choice would be appreciated.

More pictures are here: www.smac.smugmug.com/family/mom

As well as here: www.jillmc.smugmug.com/family/Sylvia-McIntosh-Verity-Dewar

Every moment some form grows perfect in hand or face; some tone on the hills or the sea is choicer than the rest; some mood of passion or insight or intellectual excitement is irresistibly real and attractive to us, — for that moment only. Not the fruit of experience, but experience itself, is the end. A counted number of pulses only is given to us of a variegated, dramatic life. How may we see in them all that is to be seen in them by the finest senses? How shall we pass most swiftly from point to point, and be present always at the focus where the greatest number of vital forces unite in their purest energy?

To burn always with this hard, gemlike flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life…. While all melts under our feet, we may well grasp at any exquisite passion, or any contribution to knowledge that seems by a lifted horizon to set the spirit free for a moment, or any stirring of the senses, strange dyes, strange colours, and curious odours, or work of the artist's hands, or the face of one's friend. Not to discriminate every moment some passionate attitude in those about us, and in the very brilliancy of their gifts some tragic dividing of forces on their ways, is, on this short day of frost and sun, to sleep before evening.

Walter Pater, The Renaissance, 1868

Do not stand at my grave and weep;

I am not there. I do not sleep.

I am a thousand winds that blow.

I am the diamond glints on snow.

I am the sunlight on ripened grain.

I am the gentle autumn rain.

When you awaken in the morning's hush

I am the swift uplifting rush

Of quiet birds in circled flight.

I am the soft stars that shine at night.

Do not stand at my grave and cry;

I am not there. I did not die.

Anonymous (was taped up in Mom’s kitchen)

There was an excerpt from a poem by Mary Oliver in a column in the Globe and Mail 10 April 2010. 
"I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?"

The whole thing (it's not much longer) is here: http://www.loc.gov/poetry/180/133.html Mom would have disagreed with the “idle” and the “one,” but I think she would still have appreciated the general sentiment.

Here are some poems by Mom, the first from Ripples:

***************************
NOW

Stop
hear the rush of life
in search of time to come
tearful in the past

 So fragile the present

A breath ever changing

Impossible to hold

****************************

It's hard to replicate the text spacing, etc.  The book Thoughts and Ramblings is in her own hand-writing, so it's even hard to replicate things from it, but here are a couple:

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THE GARDEN

My refuge
   mentor
pacer

Sounds of silence
colour
peace

Evening breeze caresses
till moonlight
filters into dawn
Nature lifts her face
to greet the sun that
is its life

No questions asked
Just being in its joy
   a garden teaches much

**************************

Here's one that really makes me smile:

***************************
THAT'S THAT

There's a fly on the window
    climbing mountains - trees
riding clouds
walking fences

Should I catch him and
    put him out? Yes--
    but he always escapes
    my efforts

Perhaps he doesn't want
   to roam further and higher

He's a fly on the window
and
        that's that
and
        that's life

****************************

Version of 2010/05/03