By Mick Lowe
Jennifer Keck, professor of social work, community activist, mother and friend, who died from complications resulting from breast cancer on Wednesday (June 12) morning, left this life pretty much the way she lived it: with grace, passion and zest, and surrounded by love.
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Jennifer Keck |
It was characteristic of Jennifer that, only a month before her death, her voice was heard across Canada on CBC Radio News, strong, clear, and indignant, speaking out on behalf of the Justice With Dignity campaign that had been launched here in Sudbury to remember Kimberly Rogers.
Jennifer was a prime mover in this ongoing nationwide effort, an open appeal to what Abraham Lincoln once called ?the better angels of our nature.?
What Jennifer and her fellow activists wanted everyone to recognize and remember was that we live in a society ? and a community ? that had condemned a pregnant woman to house arrest and eventual death when the only ?crime? she had committed was attempting to create a better life for herself and her unborn child.
Those sentiments were pure Jennifer. It was she, after all, who, early in the Harris regime, gave a public lecture analysing the notorious ?workfare? or Ontario Works program, convincingly tracing its poor-bashing origins right back to the workhouses of the Victorian era in England.
It was also pure Jennifer that, when she began to receive treatments for breast cancer in 1997, she dived into the business with both feet, helping to spearhead the Circle of Strength, The Sudbury Breast Cancer Support Group, and launching what would eventually become internationally recognized research into breast cancer.
One of the fruits of that research, a paper co-authored with her Laurentian University colleague, Leigh MacEwan, was delivered to last week?s International Symposium on Breast Cancer in Vancouver scant hours before Jennifer herself succumbed to the disease.
Part of Jennifer?s genuis was her rare ability to combine ceaseless energy (she was one of those people you find hard to imagine ever sleeping) with equal parts egoism and collectivism.
When Jennifer became involved in a cause or subject, everyone around her knew it, because the chances were good that you would be swept up in her enthusiasm, too.
So it was that, at last year?s Dragon Boat Festival, students and faculty from Laurentian?s School of Social Work paddled a boat, christened ?Jennifer?s Spirit,? in her honour.
Among Jennifer?s enthusiasms over the years were the Myths and Mirrors performing arts group, the Sudbury Women?s Centre/Centres des Femmes de Sudbury, and the United Steelworkers? of America Local 6500 Women?s Committee.
Only near the end of her life, when we organized a party in her honour, did it become clear just how many people, in how many diverse walks of life, Jennifer had touched during her 48 years.
More than a hundred people from all over Canada attended, and the only person in the overflowing rooms who knew each and every one of them was Jennifer herself.
The daughter of Lyle and Jacqueline Fournier Keck, Jennifer was, emphatically, one of us.
Born and raised here On the Rock, she attended Esther Road and Algonquin Road Public Schools, graduating from Lo Ellen Park Secondary in 1972.
She received a bachelor?s degree in political science from Carleton University in 1975, a masters of social work from Carleton in 1981, and a doctorate in social work from the University of Toronto in 1995.
Besides her father Lyle, Jennifer is survived by her partner Don Kuyek, her beloved son David, her special son Devlin, her sister Leslie and her niece Jordan Keck.
She is mourned by an entire community. A memorial sevice will be held on Saturday, June 22 at 2 pm in the Alphonse Raymond Auditorium of Laurentian?s school of education.
Jennifer Keck?s words:
A message to my health-care providers
Remember that I am more than a disease,
a case, a statistic,
I am a mother, a wife, a friend and a lover
A writer, a teacher, a spiritual being
Ms., professor, doctor, or Jennifer
But not Mrs. Keck
I love music, crowds and a good time
I have friends who care
And a support group
That is my lifeline
