David Bruce Kirk

Born in Brampton, Ontario on November 25, 1943; died in Kelowna, BC on November 17th, just a few days shy of his 80th birthday, finally succumbing to the cancer he’d fought so valiantly for two years.

David Kirk was a renaissance man, highly intelligent and multi-talented. A consummate “news guy”, he was well informed (and deeply concerned) about the current state of geopolitical affairs. He found solace in music, poetry, nature, language, and words. He was a spiritual man, though not in a conventional way. He loved a good story.

His own story unfolds in two distinct chapters.

Chapter one is anchored in Central Canada, though it spreads throughout the world. David began working in Toronto’s advertising game for major firms, telling stories about dish soap and beer and new cars. He became disenchanted with advertising and convinced his new wife, Ruthan, to take off for parts unknown. They were gone for nearly five years, stopping to work whenever money ran low, travelling from Spain to Germany, then further afield to South Africa, from there overland to Nepal and India, then southward again to Australia and New Zealand.

Their marriage didn’t survive the adventure. David arrived home alone, needing to “put things in drawers”, though he would hit the road time and again in the years ahead. While passing though Vancouver in 1980 he met his second wife, Janis. They married in 1984.

David spent most of his career in TV News and Current affairs, primarily for CBC News. He directed The National, CBC’s nightly national news program. Later, he worked as a documentary field producer for CBC’s, The Journal, and other independent productions. Once again, he was telling stories, Canadian stories at first, but eventually international ones. With various crews and journalists, he travelled the world, covering wars, conflicts, and horrific disasters, some natural, others manmade. Some of his documentaries won awards. More than once, in those far-off, dangerous locations, he feared for his life.

The second chapter of David’s life began some 25 years ago when he and Janis moved to Kelowna, BC, drawn by the magical beauty of the Okanagan Valley. He was tired, his energy spent. And he yearned for a quieter, more contemplative life,

“To live a contemplative life, “he wrote in his journal, “is to recognize and accept that one is divided, incomplete, and out of touch with reality “. The remedy, he believed, was, “regular conscious contact with the transpersonal essence of natural intelligence that informs one’s own unique character from the deepest recesses of one’s embodied soul.”

And this became David’s spiritual quest, to which he devoted the rest of his life. With disciplined, scholarly intent, he read voraciously, in psychological, mystical, academic, and scientific realms. He sought counselling, meditated, practiced Tai-Chi, visited monasteries, and journalled with monk-like intensity, exploring the nuances of his inner world as rigorously as he’d explored the outer, physical world.

Along the way, David began writing a memoir, with typical diligence and intensity. His greatest regret, he said, as his cancer progressed, was that he would never finish it.

He did, however, find the contemplative life he sought, confiding in a letter to a mentor, “I am grounded, where I need to be – in the right place to continue to grow, practise my true if imperfect love, spin my introspective yarn – and in doing so further my existential voyage and live out whatever gift of time that might remain in my gifted dotage.”

David’s “gifted dotage” ended far too soon. Those left to mourn and forever miss him include his wife, Janis Kirk of Kelowna, BC, sister and brother-in-law, Patricia and Al Forrest, Guelph, Ontario, sister-in-law Rene Kirk, Arden, Ontario, eight nieces and nephews and their families, all of whom adored, “Uncle Dave”, and many friends who loved him dearly.

He was predeceased by his parents, Marsden and Doris Kirk of Oakville, Ontario; his brother, Marsden Kirk, of Arden Ontario; and his first wife, Ruthan (Rooty) Kirk of Gibson’s BC.

Informal gatherings for family and friends in BC and Ontario will be held next year.