remembrance
a brief glimpse of honouring the fallen, and a toast to my friend Ted
1.
In Ukraine, memory is a vivid, visible thing. In the cemeteries, even the most humble, many graves are resplendent with flowers and bordered by small benches with tables. Every so often people go there to sit, pour shots of vodka and have a picnic with their ancestors. They tell stories about the deceased, even those who died before they were born. The graves of soldiers are even more elaborate, and every day, there are more.
This is one of the ways they ensure they’ll remember. Not just now, but forever.
Two weeks ago, I was on a phone call with my editor. We were hashing out potential angles for a Remembrance Day story, but nothing was really clicking. It’s difficult to find new ways to cover Remembrance Day, especially as the years turn and Canada’s wars slip further into the rearview mirror.
Suddenly, an idea flicked into my head.
“You know what the story would be,” I said. “Somewhere out there, there has to be a Ukrainian-Canadian Second World War veteran from Manitoba, who has family now serving in Ukraine, that I could interview here.”
If we could find such a person, I thought, it would allow us to both mark the spirit of Remembrance Day in Canada, while honouring the links between different times and different places. We were certain a connection like that existed, but also that it would be a long-shot to find on short notice.
Incredibly, we found them, for my story in Saturday’s paper.
Last week, I travelled out to a village near the Polish border to meet the family here: a veteran father of nine children, three of whom also volunteered to defend Ukraine. Of those, the youngest, Dmytro, never came home.
After chatting a couple of hours in the family’s home, we went to visit Dmytro’s grave. Even though I’ve become familiar with the care Ukrainians put into their cemeteries, the monument to the young soldier still left me stunned. It was beautiful, a sculpture of grey stone, carefully polished and decorated with flags, flowers and lanterns.
“It’s not finished yet,” Dmytro’s father said. They still plan to add a near life-size photo of him on one side.
I told him that it was a beautiful grave. I told him that we rarely made such elaborate tombs in Canada, or tended them quite so closely.
When a soldier here dies, Dmytro’s father explained, the family gets a little money. Many use it to build these monuments. He took me to another tomb nearby, also of a soldier, also as expensive and beautiful.
On Monday, Canada paused to mark Remembrance Day. It occurred to me that, when I leave Ukraine, one of the things I’ll take away is a deeper understanding of how and why we must remember. It doesn’t have to be a stone tomb; that’s just one, very visible way of making the same statement.
The world has always cycled through war and peace. There will always be forces that bring violence, and must be resisted. There will always be the oppressed, fighting for liberation. Where we invest memory is a declaration that, while the cycle continues, we will not surrender to its inevitability.
I still need to think on this a little further. It hits different though, when war is not something you’ve only heard about from either long ago, or far away, or both.
2.
Regarding the American election: if one has nothing good to say, better to say nothing at all.
3.
My friend Ted died on Saturday morning, a series of words which does not yet make sense to me. He’d announced in June that he had cancer, multiple myeloma, a disease which, because it was Ted, I was naïvely sure he’d beat. Besides, he sounded cheerful when I reached out to him just after his diagnosis. I should have realized that was the standard Ted operating system. There was no other way for him to be.
“He looks like a happy guy,” a friend here said, when I sent him photos of Ted.
Yeah, that sums up Teddy, alright.
These have been heavy days of loss for Manitoba. Last week, we lost Senator Murray Sinclair, the trailblazing judge and the guiding light of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. (My dear colleague Niigaan’s column on his father's last fire is the most beautiful thing he’s ever written, and so generous in its spirit to explain the ceremony to all Manitobans.) We lost Alyson Shane, a brilliant light in local social media circles.
Now, we’ve lost Ted Wyman, the longtime sports editor at the Winnipeg Sun.
On Saturday, when I learned that Ted was gone, it knocked the breath from my lungs. Sometimes, people assume that journalists with rival outlets will themselves be rivals. In Winnipeg, at least, and especially in sports, that’s never really been true. The city is too small, and we need each other too much. We do best when we support each other.
Ted exemplified this spirit. On Saturday evening, Sportsnet reporter Sean Reynolds opened his podcast with a beautiful memory of Ted. Sean spoke about how, when he was new on the sports beat and feeling out of place, Ted was the first to take him out on the town and make him feel truly welcome, as if he belonged.
“I want to be a Ted,” Sean said.
This is, perhaps, the universal experience of Ted Wyman. In many ways, Teddy was the glue which brought, and held, a lot of sports media socializing together. He was tall, with a big voice and an easy, infectious laugh; you always knew when he was in the room. He was easygoing, and with an incredibly genuine spirit: Ted was the first to tell you that you did a great job, even though you might work for a rival paper. He was on your side when you struggled, in work or in life.
Once, I told him about a bad thing that a very well-known sports journalist had done to me, something I’d long hesitated to disclose. Teddy had my back immediately. If I ever decided to come forward, he told me, he’d support me in any way I needed.
And Ted, maybe more than anyone else I met on the sports beat, was always up for a good time. Travelling to sports events with him was always an adventure. We rocked karaoke at a dirty dive bar in Nova Scotia. We once reserved the conference room at a Saskatoon hotel, cracked open some beers, brought out my guitars, and strummed out Tom Petty and Tragically Hip songs all night. I wasn’t even working at that event; I’d come to the Canadian Olympic Curling Trials just to hang out with my friends, chief among them Ted.
Truth be told, I never understood how he did it. At the 2021 Grey Cup in Hamilton, I was in absolute awe of his stamina: he’d churn out work all day, and then lead us on a gleeful pub crawl all night. He’d be the first one into the hotel after-party, and the last to leave. But he’d always be up in early the morning, as energetic as always, dashing to the stadium to gather interviews and bang out the day’s big stories.
“How do you do it?” I teased him. “After last night, all I wanna do is sleep.”
Ted laughed.
Ted loved music, and more than that, he loved sharing music with people. He loved to host jam sessions at his house and on the road. It was the “people” part that appealed to him the most, I think. When I search for a word to describe Ted, the one that stands out most is “buddy.” He was a true pal, a true bud. The guy you most wanted to go out for a beer with, after the day’s work was done. We all loved him, immensely. He turned a bunch of colleagues from across Canada into a community.
When I moved to Ukraine last year, I gave Ted two of my guitars. I wanted them to sing while I was gone, and I couldn’t imagine anyone better to keep them singing. I remember the day I dropped by his house. I had so many things to do in those final days in Canada, I couldn’t stay long. We chatted for a few minutes, we laughed, and then I handed him the instruments and left.
I wish I had stayed longer, now. God, I wish I had stayed longer.
We kept in touch, off and on. He told me, sincerely and with the usual enthusiasm, some incredibly kind things about my time away. In February, he invited me on the podcast he hosted with our friend Greg Strong, and it was such a delight to see him and hear his voice again.
Eight months later, he was gone.
In the hours after Ted died, the community he helped unite came together. The Jets put his photo on the big screen. The Bombers did a moment of silence. My texts and DMs filled up as journalists from Toronto and Calgary and Vancouver all reached out to each other, offering our hearts and shoulders, affirming how much we all loved Ted, and also each other. Many of these friendships wouldn’t exist without Ted. His zest for life and everybody in it brought us all together.
If you ever enjoyed Ted’s sports coverage, then do me a favour.
Call that friend. Go for that drink. Talk about the big game, or life, or anything at all. Stay out later than you should. Pick up that guitar you haven’t touched in a while, or put on that one song and sing along at the top of your lungs.
Go chat with someone at work who, you’ve noticed, has been a little shy, or might feel a little out of place. Listen to them. Offer to help them with something. And tell them — sincerely — that they’re doing a great job. It doesn’t matter what you do. Just bring people in, and give them the gift of a moment to remember.
Be a buddy. Be a friend.
Be a Ted.