MOVING MEMOIR RESONATES WITH HARD-EARNED WISDOM AND JOY
Standing at the Back Door of Happiness And How I Unlocked It
David Roche | Harbour Publishing $22.95 | 192pp.
How many of the nearly 8,000 Canadians invested into the Order of Canada since 1967 have a story that includes facial disfigurement from a vascular malformation, radiation treatment as a child, years training to be a Catholic priest, more than a decade as a full-time organizer for a tiny Marxist party, and a current career as a popular author, actor, and motivational speaker?
You might sensibly guess none. The correct answer is one — the remarkable David Roche. Standing at the Back Door of Happiness is his story.
Roche, based in Roberts Creek on the Sunshine Coast, was born 80 years ago in Hammond, Indiana. His story could easily be told as a brutal tragedy, but Roche tells it with laughter and hard-won wisdom.
Before he got to kindergarten, the vascular malformation, plus the impacts of aggressive medical treatment, left him branded in a highly visible way. With the puckish humour that has been one of his survival tools, Roche told the CBC'S Matt Galloway that his face now features “… purple, red, violet — actually, quite lovely colours — on one side of my face, which got affected by radiation when I was one year old. It did not grow as well as the rest of me, so is noticeably smaller. Yet, with all of that … I'm actually quite cute.”
Add to that facial branding the rigours of a 20th century Catholic
boyhood and time in the seminary training for priesthood, and then a strenuous dozen years as a community activist and a cadre in the ferocious Marxist grouplet the Democratic Workers' Party. Enough to make most people turn to despair, bitterness, and substance abuse — or become hedge fund managers.
In general, I am profoundly skeptical about motivational speakers and their often-facile prescriptions for positive thinking. If Marx was right that in the 19th century religion was the opiate of the masses, in our times motivational speakers might represent the Prozac of the people. Too much exposure to their monetized sweetness is enough to bring on insulin shock.
But Roche's message of love, self-care, tolerance, and joy is not only grounded in suffering, but impressive levels of service to others. There are lessons here for us all, and they are delivered in Roche's signature deft, conversational prose.
Highly recommended.