John Douglas Allen

Happy anniversary

Happy 45th to you and ma. We love you and think of you daily.

Father’s Day 2024

Happy Father’s Day to the greatest father and man we know. We will be looking for the humming birds and fire flies a little extra this weekend. Ky misses her papa cuddles each day. Thank god she has a papa bear that provides a piece of you with her. Love you Daddio. xo

Eulogy 2022 by Josh Allen

Dad Hello everyone and let me start by saying thank you for attending today from far and wide the outpouring of support goes a long way in helping with the grieving process and catching up with all of you reminds us of why we have all gathered to celebrate the life of such a great man, my father John Allen. The only down side to all of this is that dad can’t be here to enjoy it with all of us. Now I say John Allen and I obviously knew him as Dad but perhaps you may have known him as Johnny, John-O, JD, Double 0s, John boy, Papa Richard, pops or my personal favourite ears balls and wherever he is now watching over us for obvious reasons I know he heard that. When I was asked/told I had to do this eulogy today admittedly I was quite nervous which seemed odd to me as all I need to do is talk about the man I looked up to my whole life how hard can that be?. Regardless, I didn’t know what I would say or if my own emotion would allow me to articulate it the way that it should be. Then as time went on I ran into a different problem in trying to determine which memories to highlight as there are just so many. After a short time I realized I could stand up here and tell stories for hours but I didn’t want put you all through that instead I just want to share a few memories that highlight the father, husband, brother, grandfather, friend and colleague dad was. Growing up his love of family and putting us above all else was clear to me even as a kid. He and mom had a great relationship and shared in all the responsibilities of family life including cooking, cleaning and taking Terri and I to our various activities. Oh except laundry…I never saw him do laundry I’m not even sure if he knew how the machines worked. As I grew up and started to have to do my own laundry I began to think maybe he was smarter than I gave him credit for. As far as cooking goes, and I may regret saying this, I always preferred when it was his night to cook over moms (sorry mom). He took the fatherhood thing to heart and I don’t just mean his loving nature and how he put us kids and mom ahead of himself and all else I mean he had the uniform and everything. He would sport the light coloured blue jeans that covered his athletic socks you just knew were pulled up damn near knee high underneath. He would sport the white new balance shoes one grass stained pair for working and a fresh white pair for going out. As the cycle went the nice shoes would become the work shoes as they wore on and then came the big day when he got to bring home a new pair of crisp white new balances ready for whatever the beer gardens, kieffers back yard or the Hartley house could throw at him. The grass stained ones must have been put to good use because I remember our lawn always looking like a fairway and even as a kid I judged other peoples lawns who didn’t look like ours which was essentially every other lawn in town. His friends even used to tease him asking if he rolled it up and stored it indoors for the winter. In case you are curious I did not inherit his lawn care abilities. Getting back to our childhood mom and dad were lucky enough to raise two wonderful children yours truly of course and a second adopted child who they took in as their own which speaks volumes to their loving nature. Dad and Terri, in Terri’s competitive pitching days would spend their summer afternoons practicing at the public school which would almost certainly end in some sort of combat between the two of them. I’m sure dad knew how it would end before they started but regardless he kept at it day after day helping her become one of the best softball pitchers around. His dedication to his family along with his work ethic really shone through in most situations. Personally I liked when they went pitching and got mad at one another cause it made me look even better, Thanks for taking the heat toadie. In the end Terri would get her revenge however. There was a phase in her life where she would end every sentence with, and I shit you not “abuzz abuzz abuzz”. How fucked is that? She used it like a period. It was the strangest behaviour and it went on for what seemed like forever and it drove us all nuts but away she went. Goodnight all abuzz abuzz abuzz; what’s for supper abuzz abuzz abuzz; what time are we leaving abuzz abuzz abuzz and so on and so forth. We had no clue where it came from or why until recently when we told her about this phase in her life of which she has no recollection. This leads me to believe it was likely masking some deep seeded childhood trauma likely form her time spent with her biological family….. Dad in his own right was a hell of a ball player, it may have been slo pitch and mostly for the comradery and second mostly for the beer but a decent player nonetheless, I’m sure a few here today had the opportunity to share the field with him. Mom told us a story while we were in the hospital with him and it is a good example of the professionalism these guys had both on and off the field. It was a tournament in I believe Guelph it was a weekend and it was hot so the cocktails had been rolling as you can imagine. Dad was playing outfield as he did and tried to catch a ball with his face which inevitably ended with blood shed and considerable pain and a grip to the ER. While at the hospital the Dr Prescribed him to keep taking the medication he was already on as high doses of hoppes would keep the pain at bay. Later that night at lulu’s roadhouse, and if you’ve ever seen him dance to lulu’s you know how much he loves them, being the generous fellow he was he decided to buy a bouquet of balloons for the wives of the baseball players. On his return trip to the table from the balloon vendor, with that grin on his face many of us are all to familiar with, some guy popped one of his balloons with a cigarette so dad popped him right back. He looked down at him on the flat of his back and said “those are my balloons” and carried on distributing them to the wives of the team. Moral of the story you don’t mess with his friends you don’t mess with his family and you certainly don’t mess with his balloons. Dad spent 32 years as an employee of Bruce Power where he started work at 18 years old. In speaking with his colleagues at the time he was always regarded as being, to put it politely, somewhat ornery but also one of the hardest working guys in the place. Now I used to think ok he’s the grumpy guy at work every place has one of those I get it. Now some years later Terri and some of my friends started working there and still his legacy lives on as people describe him the exact same way. I even have had perfect strangers come up to me at stag and does or the like and say “hey aren’t you John Allens son? Boy does he ever get mad at me. And wow is he ever hard to keep up with he’s a legend at that place”. All in all I think he would have been happy to leave his mark for better or worse. Oddly enough I feel as though I’ve left the same impression on previous work places and I am content to not necessarily have been perceived that way but happy to know I was perceived in a similar way that such a great man was, I will always take solace in that. I learned a shit load from my dad and am the man I am today mostly as a result of watching him and our time spent one on one. He gave me a respect and passion for classic cars and we were lucky enough to spend time together at a couple barrett Jackson car auctions. He loved telling me about each car and oh your uncle used to have one of these or so and so should have never sold that one or how much he missed his old Lincoln which would be more appropriate to have a boating licence to operate than a drivers licence. I will remember his ability to build and create such cool things when we would spend time in his workshop together. He created some beautiful furniture back in the day and I was always in awe of how effortlessly he could do that while still paying such close attention to detail. During our time together working in the shop or driving in the car there would always be oldies on. I can still here the oldies 1150 jingle “oldies 1150…..” I apologize for the poor rendition. Notable mention has to go out to the righteous brothers, pink Floyd, meatloaf and the ultra modern by comparison billy Joel those seemed to be staples in the the kitchen nearly daily and hearing some of those songs still today bring back a lot of memories of him and growing up in the colborne St house. Speaking of which one hobby I’m glad I did not follow his lead on is his need to move houses seemingly every 6 months. Im not sure where that come from but my god man what’s wrong with collecting stamps or something. I make jokes about Terri being adopted and that’s all well and good but we know at best it was a mix up when leaving the hospital…… When she really became the front runner for favourite however is when she and Kieth Became pregnant with the one who would surpass us all as the favourite for all-time and beyond, his only grand daughter Kylin. When she came along it was clear from the day she was born that a new queen in the family and definitely in his eyes had been crowned. His love for her was immeasurable and the bond the two developed as a result is something that even in death can’t be broken. Since day 1 he needed to be sent a picture of her when she woke up in the morning and when she went to bed at night. So if we do the math quick She’s 4 and a half now so 2 pictures per day x 365 days a year x 4.5 is somewhere around 3300 pictures, and still wasn’t enough. Now Terri admitted to sometimes recycling pictures and sending repeats after he passed away which solidified her place in a distant 3rd among us. But I digress, No matter how much pain he was in at the time as a result of the cancer he would always get down on the floor to play kitchen or dolls with ky. No matter how tired he was from treatments or what have you there was always time for a story. He loved that kid and while I am glad she had the time she did with him I am sorry that he won’t be there to watch her grow and instill some of the same values in her that he did in Terri and I. We are nearing the end I promise…. As you may or may not know dad was diagnosed with cancer about 8 and a half years ago but the battle and his symptoms started closer to 9 years ago. At the time of diagnosis he was given 1-5 years to live and decided that’s not long enough and gave us twice the amount of time the doctors did. I guess You can’t do a blood test to factor in toughness (or perhaps stubbornness) so we will give them a pass on that. During his time living with cancer there was countless ups and downs, hundreds of appointments and treatments that he needed to attend, medications that needed to be kept track of ever changing meal plans depending on what he could stomach and what he couldn’t and although we all tried to help navigate him along his journey there was always one person by his side for it all. Mom, you have been the rock for all of us through this long arduous journey and have carried yourself and the rest of us through it with elegance and some days I don’t how you did it. You always maintained the same demeanour and even though you were helping dad with all his stuff always took time to make sure I was fed and watered when I stopped by. I know it wasn’t all sunshine and lollipops but you would never let it show. I am sure that part of the reason he fought so long was because he had you in his corner and together there was nothing you couldn’t do. We should say it more but we love love you mom and are eternally grateful for everything you have done and continue to do for us. Following dads passing one of moms friends reached out to her and put simply and perfectly into words how to describe mom and dad during dads fight with cancer. She said we need to switch their names from John and Jane to Grit and Grace and Honestly I can’t think of something more fitting. Now, During a trip to Venezuela years ago mom and dad ate at a restaurant where the owner would sit down with each table following their meal and share a glass of Glayva with them. Since then dad has always had a bottle in the liquor cabinet to sip on usually following a meal as he insisted “it helps with digestion” (Ya sure dad my 3 beers with supper also help with digestion). He was an incredible father and husband, a loyal friend and brother and a loving grandfather. He fought an unbeatable opponent for 9 years and although he lost his life I will always consider him to have won that fight in true Allen form. As an honour to his life I ask that you all raise a glass of glayva with us now (ginger ale for the non drinkers is available) and toast the life of such great man. This ones for you dad you may be gone but you will never be forgotten may your legacy live on forever. Cheers and fuck cancer.

Two years

It’s crazy you have been gone two years. Seems like only yesterday we were cheering to our family in the hospital. I would give anything to have one more day with you. Your sarcasm, your laugh, your grouchy demeanour, all of it. I hope Today is the day your new new balance became your lawn cutting shoes and the greens ones were tossed away. Today I think about you a little extra knowing one of the best went way to soon but glad we got as long as we did. You are the epitome of strength. Love and miss you Daddio.