Delivered by the Rev. Parisa Parsa
First Parish Church, Milton, Massachusetts December 30, 2008
On December 8, 1986 Laurie Macintosh and Rich Mickle welcomed their first child into the world. Ian was special to them as any baby is to his parents: a joy and a delight. But it wouldn't be long before there was a great deal more known about the specific kind of joy and delight Ian would bring them. From an early age, Ian enjoyed – reveled, even, in physical activity. As Laurie describes it, he was happiest when he was physically tired, when his body had had a good workout. As a young child he biked with his mother from the outer ring highway around Toronto – the 401, like Rte 128 here – all the way downtown to the CN Tower. When he learned to play soccer, he was a force to be reckoned with: his focus on getting to the goal was so single-minded that the other kids knew better than to get in his way. In hockey, he couldn't wait to get to the age when they could check other players: that was the real game in its full intensity. He was also a skier and snowboarder, a Nastar gold medalist. There was little he put his mind to that he didn’t accomplish.
That extended to his academic life as well. Laurie remembers clearly a time when he was in third grade and had left a report undone until the night before. As he struggled to complete it, he had an epiphany: Mom, he said, I just learned that you should never leave anything until the last minute. You should always start at least two weeks before. To the best of anyone’s knowledge, from then on, he followed that rule. His amazing work ethic and determination served him well: he would have a paper route at the age of eleven, and conscientiously make sure everyone’s paper was delivered on time and in the proper place. No tip could be taken for granted, and no amount of snow would deter him from his route up Harland Street.
Ian worked steadily at different jobs from then on, including at Charles River Canoe and Kayak over the summer he was 14. His knowledge of kayaking made him a natural, and endeared him to his older colleagues. He was the youngest person ever to be sponsored by WaveSport Kayaks.
Ian’s love of kayaking took him to two different kayaking schools, Adventure Quest and Huge Experiences, where he and his fellow paddlers travelled around the world with their teachers and coaches, studying, kayaking and doing community service wherever they went. He reported home from his travels, “I’m having the time of my life!”
Unfortunately, the time of his life was cut short by a serious back injury caused by overtraining as he prepared for competition on the National Junior Team. His joy in physicality was hampered by serious and chronic pain that may never have left him. Healing the injury to his vertebra took him out of training for a year, and effectively ended his career in competitive kayaking. Ian struggled to find meaning in his life as he recovered from his injury. He completed high school and did well in his courses with his usual determination. He made the National Honor Society. He struggled with college for a time, and then found his way in 2006 to the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, where he could be close to the kayaking that was his passion and the landscape where he felt at home.
It was in Vancouver that he was reunited with Laura, a friend from kayaking school who soon became his girlfriend and great love. He had a wonderful first year at UBC, where he majored in philosophy and connected with friends old and new. But the depression that had haunted Ian since his back injury emerged with a more pronounced edge, and he was diagnosed with a bipolar disorder this past summer. It is a profound tragedy that his own brain chemistry would not allow him, a bright, talented, loved and loving young man, to see a way out of his great suffering.
In his 22 years, Ian saw more of the world than most of us have. His inquisitive mind and love of nature made him open to insights and ideas from every culture and religion. He loved the beauty and the indifference of nature, and loved to marvel at the infinite nature of the universe. He loved the questions that had no answers, but that sent a person on a journey of mind and heart.
Ian was devoted to his elders, his parents and grandparents, and especially called on his grandparents for advice and counsel. He cared for them and took time to connect with them at an age when many could not be bothered. He had a deep sense of respect for tradition, for the importance of discipline and the need for focused training of mind and body in order to live well.
He was especially drawn to Japanese religion and philosophy, especially the philosophy of Jiu Jitsu. The three main components of that philosophy are the development of an all-encompassing awareness, zanshin (literally a “remaining spirit”), which makes someone ready for anything at any time; the spontaneity of mushin (literally “no mind”), which allows an immediate action without conscious thought; and a state of equanimity or imperturbability, known as fudoshin (literally an “immovable mind”). These aspects that are cultivated in a practitioner of jiu jitsu then work together to ensure that when the right moment arises, right action follows, the balance of the universe is kept and violence is neutralized.
Let us pray that at the end, Ian has returned to wholeness, that he dwells in that “uncontained and immortal beauty” that Emerson saw in nature, that in some way the violent thoughts and emotions that tore through him have been neutralized. We who survive cannot feel any balance in the universe when one so young dies so tragically, but perhaps in putting the pieces together, in taking up the unanswered question Ian’s death leaves for us, we can find new balance in the embrace of loving community and the infinite spirit that enfolds us. We know that Ian was conceived in love, was surrounded by love, and now has returned to the source of all love. Let us pray that Ian’s beautiful spirit might find rest in the arms of the eternal, and be at one with all creation. So may it be.
Eulogy
