The Icelandic Canadian - 01.10.2002, Blaðsíða 18

60
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
Vol. 57 #2
father when I was very young or becoming
part of a blended family at age thirteen (not
a good age for that) or being treated for TB
at the sanitarium. It made kind of an absurd
sense of life and that is existential philoso-
phy. I have heard it said existentialism is
passe philosophy but I don't agree with
that. It's been around for a long time and
will continue to be so. It is a way of look-
ing at reality.
I feel very much a sense that there is a
spiritual dimensional part of my life, I
don't know what is. 1 think I may run into
it sometime. Some people say this is a con-
tradiction in terms of my concern with
evaluation and absurdity of existence.
In many ways I find my own way rec-
onciling them. That is becoming increas-
ingly part of my own personal philosophy.
In terms of what I would like to pass
on to my children. I jotted these notes
down quickly.
Be gentle. Be gentle with one another.
Care for one another, I would encour-
age that in my children and grandchildren.
Pickerel • Salmon
Shrimp • Goldeye
Lobster • Crab
Hardfiskur
and more!
We pack for travel
596 Dufferin Avenue
Winnipeg, MB
589-3474
Afterward
by Neil Bardal
I wanted to say something about
John's time in Gimli. It is really that time
he valued the most toward the end. His
childhood until 4 years old was idyllic but
somewhat a fanciful childhood memory
which was exaggerated with the passage of
time and some horrific experiences in later
life. It was in Gimli that he realized, I think
for the first time, that people actually liked
and respected John for who he really was,
not the Professor, not the writer, not the
facade that he felt he had to live behind for
most of his life. Jonas Johnson and Russ
MacMillian liked the real John with all his
foibles and realized that they had met a
superb intellect who could go the distance
intellectually with them. He also was
encouraged to paint, play the trumpet,
work on a play and do things that he had
real talent for by people that recognized
that talent in him.
In the many rides we had back and
forth to Winnipeg, we were re- introduced
to one another. I got to know a John that I
had not known previously, and I got to
truly love him in a brotherly way. His
careful analytical mind, his scrupulous
research into matters that interested him,
and his intellectual integrity were all put to
good use in his retirement in Gimli. He hid
behind the professional robes for years,
feeling that if people knew the real John
with his real human strengths and weak-
nesses, they would somehow think less of
him. The opposite was true, we all loved
the real John much better than the stuffy
professor. Jekyll and Hyde could come
together and form the balanced, very
human, very warm, very kind, still very
studious John Matthiasson, whose passing
we all are mourning.