Their lives were larger for their many loves

Longevity alone isn’t the most useful way to measure a life. The manner in which men and women love, labour and learn to cope with the world’s inevitable sorrows is the better yardstick.

As Freud noted, although he is hardly alone in thinking so, the most important things in life are healthy relationships and meaningful work. Or, put another way, people to love, something to do, something to look forward to.

In the life stories of those lost to COVID-19 during the global pandemic, those lessons appear again and again. And if there is any gift from death in numbers, it is the opportunity it offers to contemplate the meaning of life. After all, few of us, says Canadian-American neuroscientist Daniel J. Levitin, look back as the end looms wishing we’d spent more time on social media or other distractions.

“Instead, you’ll probably be saying, ‘I wish I had spent more time with loved ones,’ or, ‘I wish I had done more to make a difference in the world.’ ”

His best advice for finding happiness, Levitin said in his book “Successful Aging,” is to “find a way to help others.”

That help can take near-limitless forms.

Jan Kwast, a father and grandfather who died last month in Mississauga at 97, was a Second World War veteran and TTC mechanic for more than 30 years. Kwast worked tirelessly fixing Toronto streetcars and providing for his family in the Warren Park neighbourhood of Toronto. He was a kind, gentle man who always told his granddaughters, “I don’t know what I would do without you,” his family said.

There is service and example enough in that for any lifetime.

Our elders teach us, after all, more by what they do than what they say.

“We are not what we think, or what we say, or how we feel. We are what we do,” wrote U.S. psychiatrist Gordon Livingston, in his book “Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart.”

Bruce Paisley, who died at age 91 last month in Newmarket, was a hockey fan with a “terrific smile,” adored by his wife, children and grandchildren.

“He loved watching hockey, whether professional or his grandchildren (playing), and spending time with whoever dropped in to see him,” his family told the Star in an email.

In his final days in a nursing home, he communicated with his family daily through FaceTime.

“While he didn’t quite understand the technology he enjoyed seeing our talking pictures.”

Nina Gertrude Watt of Oshawa, who died in April at 86, was eager to share the accumulated knowledge of a lifetime.

“Everywhere we went, she’d be able to tell me the backstory on buildings we’d pass or things we’d see,” said her son, Andrew. “She was like a computer.”

Nina, who was outgoing and approachable, worked at General Motors after graduating high school. She volunteered with the Red Cross Meals on Wheels program and was a longtime member of St. Stephen’s United Church and choir.

Teaching by her life that love is a verb.