In loving memory of Maurie Carl Anderson

November 29, 1955 - March, 2020

You've been gone a year.

A year since we last heard your voice, touched you, looked in your eyes.

A year since you made us laugh over shared memories of good times.

A year since our conversations about existence, mortality and creation. We never reached a consensus on those matters but you definitely gave us a lot to think about.

You were born at Burnaby General Hospital to Morris and Patricia Anderson and had an idyllic childhood spent along the tranquil beaches and shores of Vancouver Bay, a remote B.C. Forest Products logging camp up Jervis Inlet near the northern tip of the Sunshine Coast. Here, you experienced all that a rural, self -sufficient upbringing had to offer - including a close-call with a family of black bears that ended only when Dad intervened and you were quickly and quietly ushered from the scene.

You moved to the Lower Mainland when you were eight, settling in Coquitlam and attending Austin Heights Elementary, Como Lake and Centennial high schools. You tolerated the academic side of school and your rear end was no stranger to the strap, but you excelled as a student athlete, with baseball a favourite sport.

As an adult, you were a free spirit. Your earliest jobs took you to Quesnel and Calgary for a time, then back to the Lower Mainland for work at an appliance warehouse in Richmond and finally to the Coquitlam School District, where you worked for more than 25 years in the custodial, grounds and transportation departments.

You had a sense of social justice and in 1983, you joined a few dozen other concerned citizens who occupied then-Premier Bill Bennett's Vancouver office to demonstrate their opposition to Bennett's severe restraint policies. Your parents were proud of you for taking your seat on the floor of Bennett's office in solidarity with workers.

In the mid-'90s, you scared us all when you were in a horrific car accident. You were lucky to have survived; the accident left you with a rebuilt jaw and a permanent scar on your chin. The scar only added to your rugged good looks and you had no trouble in the romance department, even well into your retirement from the Coquitlam School District in 2012.

In your retirement, you fulfilled your lifelong dream to return to the water and moved into a boat on the Fraser River, the Mr. Wiggly. When you weren't enjoying life on Mr. Wiggly, you spent it with your mom, helping her maintain her independence for longer than she would have otherwise.

As often happens when someone passes, people come forward to share their memories and offer comfort to those left behind. We've learned that you were a good neighbour, a loyal friend, a pontificating philosopher and the love of someone's life.

They've also confirmed what we've always known - that you were never one to pay any heed to conventional wisdom or societal expectations. You danced to your own tune, which often meant exploring non-traditional viewpoints on life, death and existence itself. You had an abiding belief in the other-worldly, and we hope you are correct in your assertions, and that you're up in that peaceful, faraway place in the stars, looking through space at all of us, laughing, shaking your head in satisfaction and muttering, "I told you so."