National Post (National Edition)
‘HE’S ONE OF OURS’
CANADIAN VET DIES ALONE, BUT NOT UNNOTICED
Lloyd Maxwell’s noon-hour funeral service took less than seven minutes, his flag-draped coffin lowered into the ground shortly after Fr. Jeffrey King sprinkled holy water and poured sand on the casket in the shape of a cross.
In the distance, a bugle played The Last Post. It would be nice to think it was playing for Maxwell, who served from 1969 to 1971 as a reservist with The Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment) of Canada, but that was not the case. Those particular notes and their timing were a coincidence, marking someone else’s passing, in another section of Ottawa’s Beechwood Cemetery.
Lloyd Theodore Maxwell died of natural causes on July 22 after spending his final handful of years in residence at the Salvation Army Booth Centre shelter in Ottawa’s Byward Market. He was 65.
Of the 10 people, officials and reporter excluded, who attended his funeral, eight were volunteers with VETS Canada, a national non-profit organization that assists Canadian veterans who are in crisis, homeless, or at risk of becoming homeless. The other two were children of a VETS volunteer.
“He’s one of ours,” said Richard Maccallum, a VETS Canada volunteer, “and it’s standard procedure in the Canadian Forces — we never leave a man alone.”
“I know the man died alone. Myself, I prefer to be there in his last moments to pray with him, but this is a good way for us to share and pray for him.”
Maxwell’s death did not go unnoticed, not by those at the Booth Centre, where Maxwell held doors open for others and, when he spoke, always had a kind word.
In fact, so much was he tied to the routine and the people at the shelter, that when he was approached by VETS Canada a year and a half ago about moving to a home where he would receive better care, he demurred.
“His motto was ‘One day at a time,’ ” said VETS volunteer and Maxwell’s lead worker, Sonia Carrier.
“He was just a happy, softspoken, positive man who didn’t need much in life,” she added. “He said he had it all at one time, and it didn’t make him happier.”
According to Jeremy Brown, a Salvation Army resident who had known him for almost four years, Maxwell was “a very kind man who would do whatever he could for you.
“He was an old soul with a good sense of humour, and I don’t think you could find anyone here with anything bad to say about him. … He was a fixture around here, in a positive way.”
Little is known about Maxwell. He was born in North Sydney, N.S., in October 1952. Following his time in the military, he worked with Ontario Hydro. He never married or had children. His next of kin was listed as the Last Post Fund, a non-profit organization dedicated to ensuring that every veteran receives a dignified funeral, burial and military headstone. The organization paid for Maxwell’s ceremony and burial on Wednesday.
Maxwell was an early riser, up by 4:30 most mornings and out the door to pick up a coffee, blueberry muffin and the Ottawa Sun — he liked to keep up on current events.
In the afternoons, he might be found at a nearby Tim Hortons, not for the coffee so much as for the company of his friends. He liked sports, particularly football and Ottawa Senators hockey, and karaoke. He also boxed in his youth.
“He always had people’s backs,” said one woman at the centre who asked not to be named. “I found that admirable because it’s such a fight-or-flight environment here, yet he had that care for other people. Lloyd was one of the sweetest guys kicking around here.”
“A lot of people here,” added Brown, “were upset when they found out he’d passed away. I miss the guy already.”