Diana, Brenda & Marc, and the rest of the Prymack/Thomson family,

This is just a quick note to let you know that I've been thinking about you the past few days and that if I lived closer I'd be there today to offer giant hugs and clammy handshakes to you all. 

Grandpas are really special and so are the rare times that you can have the entire family together. I hope you've been able to find comfort in the memories and stories you have pooled between you. Brenda, you've made so many visits to Ottawa since I've known you and I've heard bits of stories here and there. I think this time you should see if you can pay a cab driver to transport a more exotic animal than a dog. I'm sure that would make your dad chuckle.

Diana, the message you shared is heartwarming and so, so true. Thinking of you. 

x Amanda

A lot of my memories of Grandpa are pretty fragmented and out of order, but what I do remember is how he made me feel when I was really little. Going to visit Granny and Grandpa when I was a kid was the first time that I felt what it was like to be on vacation. For context, for a small child the living is always pretty easy, but it’s not fishing at the pond, picking out treats or trinkets from Giant Tiger, being treated to disproportionately oversized tiger ice-cream cones and sharing dishes of licorice allsorts easy. 

I remember him play the harmonica and his scat-style singing along without words to any familiar song proving that he did in fact know all of the lyrics. Because of distance, I wasn’t lucky enough to spend an awful lot of time with him, but I know without question that the time that I was able to spend with him was a gift. To still have so many people in my life that he has touched and shaped for the better is yet another gift. 


I remember Grandpa patiently coaching me through my golf swing as I pelted golf balls across the football field near our home. It seemed like we would do this for whole days. This was probably an unappreciated (and due to the resulting divots - likely forbidden) use of the school's pitch, but it was something we did whenever Granny and Grandpa visited. Unfortunately my golf skills never amounted to anything and my appreciation for the game never grew to include the game in its entirety. I will probably never be any better than I was, nor enjoy the game any more than I did in the football field in my illegal practices with Grandpa.

Later as a teenager who thought himself pretty clever, I told Grandpa an unoriginal golf joke while we watched it on TV. I asked him why golf announcers always seemed to be whispering, unlike other sportscasters who tended to be animated and excited by the events they covered. He told me he didn't know. I told him it was because they didn't want to wake anyone up. After a pause he had a good chuckle, despite my obvious criticism of the game he enjoyed so much.

Basically, two primary qualities come to mind when remembering Grandpa: kindness and patience. Those may not be unusual qualities in grandparents - already having the experience of raising their own children and the resulting inoculation against their tiresome questions and often unreasonable behaviour - but they were definitely appreciated. Especially when looking back, if not necessarily in the moment.

OBITUARY

Robert Thomson

June 16, 1927 – April 4, 2018

McEvoy-Shields Funeral Home and Chapel

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