John Douglas Cook

Pre-deceased by his beloved wife, Carol, and survived by his children Stewart Cook (Tricia), John Cook (Pat), Kate Pattison (Robert) and David Cook (Carol), as well as his grandchildren Christopher, James, and Matthew and his great-grandchildren, Lyanna and Ivy.

Doug graduated as a Civil Engineer from UNB after switching his major from Forestry. He worked for Imperial Oil for most of his career and worked across the organization, bringing his innate sense of order and project management to everything he did. Anyone who saw that graph paper show up in a meeting knew they were going to get organized.

However, he never lost his love of the natural world and spent years after his retirement consulting for the Banff-Bow Valley project, earning the high honour and recognition as a Dollar-a-Year person from the federal government for his work and commitment to protecting the environment.

That dedication to the environment was a big part of our family life as well. Once, many years ago (and in an undisclosed province and city), he saw that trees had been improperly planted along a highway. He grumbled for weeks at this travesty until one night he piled a couple of his kids in the car and ‘rescued’ half a dozen of those trees and repatriated them to a nearby forest. We’d like to think they thrive there still.

He was always known for his keen sense of humour, ability to bring people together, and make strangers friends. He lived his life with energy, warmth, and thoughtfulness. For many years, his favorite place in the world was puttering around the Trent Waterways with Carol, or just sitting watching the water in their place on Chemong Lake in Bridgenorth. In later years, his greatest joys were an annual golfing trip to PEI with his son, John, and teasing his more left-leaning children about politics.

The last two years of his life were not easy, and he faced challenge after challenge but always rallied to find a measure of happiness, no matter how bad things got. He and his dear friend, Karen, got out for his daily cigar, lunch at his favorite restaurant, Berc’s, and even strolls along the river. He found a quality of life even at the lowest points, and his resilience awed those around him. He fought to keep his dignity and independence to the very end.

One final note – it would be remiss to talk about our dad’s life without mentioning George. George was our beloved – but entirely fictional - eldest brother. George was always held up as an example of a child whose behavior was so disappointing he finally just wasn’t around anymore. (I know, very dark humour, but that was par for the course in this family) If we did something that was bad, but not too bad, and not bad enough for discipline, Dad would look at us sternly and say “you know, that was the last thing George ever did before he disappeared’ It was said with humour and love, and as adults, we could see that Dad created the story of George as a way to be a gentler parent, and use laughter to have better relationships with his kids.

We’d like the thank all the staff, PSWs and management at Princess Gardens for the care, compassion and commitment shown to Dad throughout his stay. We would also like to express our profound gratitude for the doctors of the MAiD program, who helped give Dad agency over the most important decision of his life and did so with extraordinary empathy and professionalism.