Legacy

Photo credit: Heather 'Gleather' Carruthers

I have been thinking about legacy a lot lately. Maybe it is because I have retired from my full-time job as a Professor at the University of Waterloo as of September 1, 2025. Because I was retiring, some folks at my workplace took a moment to make sure that I heard how they value me and my contributions.

Maybe I am thinking about legacy because my work has always been in grief and palliative care where that topic looms large. I recently finished teaching a twelve-week course on grief and palliative care. In this course, students are encouraged to think about their own mortality and that of others around them, including but not limited to the people they work with as social workers. Legacy conversations and exercises are often a part of the work we do as social workers.

Maybe I am thinking about legacy because I traveled to Winnipeg recently to bury my friend Glen Carruthers. His legacy is so strong and that trip helped me to understand that even more. So, let me tell you about Glen.

I met Glen at work. We were both in administration: I had been an acting dean for about six months when he arrived as the new Dean of the Faculty of Music. There were three new deans and they all were nice. But when I ran into Glen and his wife Heather at my favorite café on a weekend, our relationship solidified. After this meeting, we started getting together socially. And as we all got to know one another, the bond between Glen and Heather with me, my husband and three children grew.

It is difficult to talk about Glen without talking about Heather. They were – and remain – a unit. They are known as Gleather. Their love of music was contagious. Their appreciation of food, travel and trains was infectious. They began joining our family at holidays and gatherings. Humor was a huge part of our time together. There are few adults in our lives who are enjoyed as much by all three of my children.

Professionally, Glen mentored me in administration as he had vastly more experience than me. I changed jobs a couple of times and he helped me through the transitions. We attended concerts together. I got to hear Glen playing the piano for the Faculty of Music where he was received like a rock star.

When Glen was diagnosed with cancer, he talked openly about his death even while getting treatment and being declared healthy. He seemed more at ease talking about his death than I was, even though my academic speciality was death and grief.

Glen died at home after a re-occurrence of that cancer on December 24, 2020.

How does this all tie together – legacy, Glen, retirement? Love is the answer, for me. Love is the legacy. In approaching retirement, I have been feeling the love and appreciation of my colleagues. I have been witnessing the love, care, and connection among the students in the course as well as in the stories that they relate about their people who have died.

And most of all, Glen’s legacy. His name lives on at Wilfrid Laurier University where there are now newly-built Glen Carruthers Practice Studios. His legacy lives on in the stories that students tell of him sitting on the floor and taking the time to talk to them. His is a legacy of love. Over the years since his death, including when we recently gathered in Winnipeg to bury his ashes, I have heard so much love for Glen.

I have a lot to say about only talking about love in the context of grieving someone who has died (so watch for that blog soon). However, in this case, thinking about Glen as I do so often, I think that there is no better legacy that I aspire to than love.