Hello everyone, my name is Jodi Moran. Thank you for coming to this celebration of the life of my father, Jack Moran.
Daddy, I want to tell you that we miss you. You said you had a good life, and you did.
You didn't have the happiest childhood, but we rarely heard about that. Instead, we heard about how you and uncle Johnny were inseparable as kids, and were constantly causing some kind of mayhem on the military base. Like that time you two decided that your broomstick fight in the living room would be more exciting if you set the brooms on fire. Or when you used to hide in the bushes and blow pellets at the police horses when they passed by, just to make them jump. You even lied about your age to play on the same soccer team as Johnny, and that secret lie was the cherry on top of your league win that year.
By all accounts you did eventually grow up — but not completely. At Carleton you couldn't resist coming to class early to turn all of the chairs backward. You must have been well known for such things, since the professor simply proceeded to teach from the back of the classroom instead, and then invited you personally to stay after class and turn the chairs around again. I'm also told that you were on a mission to date as many girls as possible at Carleton. Thankfully, you met mom, and then immediately told Jacqueline you'd met the girl you were going to marry. There's nothing like a shared eye roll over a melodramatic movie like "Love Story" for a first date, I guess.
As an adult, you became a lot closer with your sister Jennifer. She even came to live with you and mom after you got married. For a while the two of them thought you were a Jeopardy genius. Every day they'd come home and watch the show with you, but somehow you'd always manage to just barely beat them, surprising them with how much you knew. After a few months of this, Jennifer came home early one day, and there you were, watching Jeopardy in an earlier timeslot, putting in the time to memorize the answers just so you could beat them later. For you, the best part was being caught! That meant you could tell the story over and over of how you fooled them, making everyone laugh. Of course you laughed the hardest — at them, yes, but mostly at yourself for coming up with the joke in the first place.
You made work, even the boring kind, fun too. For most of your life, you worked a lot, and you worked hard. Business was like another game, where maybe you could figure out an angle, a way to beat the other guy, or at least do things a bit better than expected. And if there wasn't any fun in the work itself, there was always the people. Back when you were a branch manager at the Royal Bank, I remember falling asleep to the sounds of a work party you were hosting in the living room, hearing your laughter above the general hubbub. You always involved us, too: I remember you opening the back of the ATM and showing me how it worked, the fascinating sights and sounds of the money flipping by as the machine counted it.
You made the big jump out of the bank in 1985, doing what you always wanted to do, becoming an entrepreneur and business owner by buying into United Exhaust. We'd be in the warehouse helping to take inventory or pick orders, or coming along on a long meandering drive between Toronto and Ottawa to stop and chat for what seemed like hours at every customer's garage. The driving was less after you joined Pronto, but your favourite part, the chatting with customers, was even more. You became the top sales guy for the Grundys, despite the fact that they sometimes had to ask someone to call you at the order desk to wake you up from an impromptu nap. You were probably sleepy because you were working nights and weekends at the Merangue warehouse, making sure it was properly organized and that the orders were getting shipped on time. You did that partly to help your good friend John, but also to make sure you had enough money to send Dana and I to university.
You were very, very generous with us. But you were also very generous with so many others. You were practically the family bank yourself with how many loans you gave people. You trusted people to pay you back and they repaid that trust, and with that exchange you changed people's lives. And when you weren't helping people with money, you'd be helping them with your time: doing their tax returns, teaching them math, or even coaching little league. You never talked down to people when teaching them or helping them. You never talked down to anyone — everyone, of any age or any background, was worth your time and attention, and worth having a good argument with, if they were up for it. With Al you'd dive deep on how things could or should be built, with Derek you'd discuss how the Leafs were doing, and with anyone who was willing you'd debate the latest political news.
You were a person of strong opinions, and you weren't afraid to do the right thing. There was that time you dragged some vandalizing kids off an Ottawa bus, having told mom to get off the stop before. Or that day at the bank, when a client came in and started giving one of your tellers racist abuse. You calmly stepped in, asked the teller to go to your assistant manager and close the account, and then told that client he'd be banking across the street from now on. You always fought for your daughters too. No matter what we wanted to do, you never told us we shouldn't. You were there to back it and support it, whether it was a great idea, like Dana running for student council president, or a terrible idea, like me studying computer science. You made things happen for us, and in turn taught us how to make things happen in the world.
As a person, you were “pretend-stern” sometimes, but your softer side wasn't very well hidden. You hated cats, right? Except you brought us two kittens from Stanleyville, and you always wanted to tell me how smart and friendly Ducky is. You also hated babies, right? That's why you were so happy to spend time with Linden, entertaining him and jogging him on your knee. In fact you always loved being around kids. When the Witteveens came to visit, you might have been even more excited than us to go to Canada's Wonderland, just to see how much fun we had. One of the few times you took a holiday from work, it was to take us to Florida to see Mickey Mouse at Disneyworld.
Our friends thought you were hilarious. They got used to you asking "Dana who?" or "Jodi who?" when you answered the phone, and then talking to them like equals, just like you did to everyone else. They remember you driving us anywhere we wanted to go. And they all remember our epic Halloween party where you had the crazy idea to fill the entire basement with a foot of dead leaves. A nightmare to clean up, but worth it!
If Hallowe'en was fun with you, then what about Christmas! For you, Christmas originally brought to mind the unhappiness of your mother's death. But, you knew Christmas meant a lot for mom, so for your first Christmas together after getting married, you bought her boxes and boxes of Christmas ornaments to make it special. After Dana and I came along, you worked twice as hard to make Christmas special for us, whether it was getting your hands on four of the impossible-to-come-by Cabbage Patch dolls, or putting a boot in the fireplace and watching us get wide-eyed at the thought that Santa had actually been down our chimney. Our house was always decorated beyond recognition and filled with Christmas treats, and on Christmas day our hauls were huge.
Your life was also filled with games. You never met a card game you didn't like, I don't think. Long before it was cool, you were playing poker -- seven card stud please, since this game let you use your numeric facility for a bigger advantage. Your friends' poker money, which you took the greatest pleasure in parting them from, helped you pay for university. After you met mom, you'd take her out on the nights when you won. When it wasn't poker it would be bridge instead; I still can't believe you made us watch that awful black and white contract bridge show from the fifties. I learned addition (well, at least up to 15) by playing cribbage with you; and Dana learned that you weren't above cheating a small child at Go Fish. We never managed bridge as a family, but euchre made a regular appearance. I'm sure the Witteveens will also remember rowdy sessions of pass-the-ace, and borderline-violent games of spoons that never seemed to get old. Then, when the night was over and no one else wanted to play anymore, you'd be found in front of the computer on another endless streak of FreeCell.
But it wasn't just card games either! If it was Sunday it was time for the Toronto Star weekly quiz over brunch. Your answers weren't always right, but they were often unintentionally hilarious. I'm not sure what they did end up putting onto British police helmets… but I'm pretty sure it wasn't the Canadarm. Playing Trivial Pursuit against you and mom was always fascinating too. Each of you would throw out a series of way off base and random answers, going back and forth until what one of you said would suddenly prompt the other one to give the correct answer, seemingly out of the blue, leaving Dana and I looking at each other stunned. And no sooner did you join Facebook than I found my feed filled with post after post of your Candy Crush spam.
We also can’t forget about your love for sports of all kinds. As a kid you loved playing sports, winning trophies at badminton and bowling. Later, you loved watching sports. Anything from curling to baseball to even snooker or golf, if it was on you would watch it, and you always seemed to know something about the sport. Of course, it was even better if you could make a bet on it! Was it completely appropriate to take your little daughters to the racetrack and teach them how to handicap from the racing program? Maybe not, but it sure was a lot of fun. We love this picture of you at the desk making your pro-line picks in your lucky hat, ready to send mom out to the convenience store to get them in on time. You would bet on anything — even watching the Oscars was mostly an excuse to bet against Olive and John. Your favourite present to receive was a lottery ticket. You were rarely a winner in the football pool but that never stopped you, even if I could beat you at the survivor just by picking teams according to the helmet colours.
Dear Daddy. You were full of teasing, of joking, of laughter; full of fibs, of fun. You were also generous, and honest, a leader, strong-willed, a force to be reckoned with. Daddy, I want to make you one last bet. I bet you that you made a lasting impact on each one of us here. I bet you that we won't forget you, and that your influence will continue to live on. I hope you are smoking cigars in Chicago, and having the whiskey you always promised you'd have when you were 72. Thank you for everything, Daddy. I love you, and I will always miss you.
Please everyone, raise your glass. To my Dad. To Jack.