Real Talk!

Dec 30th of 2007 would have been the 30th anniversary of my marriage to David John King. I say, “would have” because we were divorced in 1990. Still, you remember those dates.

I was 17 when we met- he was 18. We married too young. Dave was a lot of fun, he liked to party. We grew in different directions. I remarried (a couple of times), Dave never did. He had a girlfriend, a dog, and no children.

Last summer, my sister and brother-in-law ran into Dave at the home show in Toronto. He visited them briefly at their home in Whitby, to talk about eaves trough. They were thrilled to reconnect with Dave and it was nice to know that he was well and happily living in what had been his grandparent’s home, in Toronto.

Today, a crew of guys showed up, totally unexpected, at my sister’s place. They started tearing off her old eaves trough and when she went out to investigate they told her that Dave was dead. He had gotten up for work, gone to the bathroom and dropped dead of a heart attack, mid-December.

Shaken, she called me immediately.

“Weird”, she said… and kept saying. “Yes”, I replied.

& it’s very sad. He had just celebrated his 50th birthday in July.

Our father died suddenly one December, of a heart attack, at 50, too.

Too young. Way too young.

Just a few minutes later, my sister emailed me this obituary, she found it on the Toronto Star newspaper website:

KING, David John- Suddenly passed away on December 11, 2007. Leaving to mourn Deborah, Bullseye, Tim, father Ross, brothers Bill, and Michael, sister Linda and their families. Visitation will be on Tuesday, December 18 at the McDougall & Brown Funeral Home located at 1812 Eglinton Ave. W. from 2-4 and 7-9 p.m., followed by a Memorial Service on Wednesday, December 19 at 2 p.m. Donations will be accepted to the Heart and Stroke Foundation and the Toronto Humane Society.