Jim Thompson, well known Byron barber, everyone’s favourite “other Dad”, and London’s answer to Elwy Yost passed away peacefully on July 22nd surrounded by family.
Jim hailed from Peterborough Ontario, the first of four children born to Marie and Joe Thompson. Always proud of his service, Jim left Peterborough in 1958 to join the 4th Battalion of the Royal Canadian Regiment (4 RCR) in the infantry, where after completing basic training, he was taught bartending and was eventually posted to the Sergeants’ Mess (apparently very appropriately named) at London’s Wolseley Barracks. It was in London that Jim met a young Beverley Topham, who would go on to become his loving wife of fifty-eight years, predeceasing Jim by only eight weeks. Jim will be forever missed by his children Dave and Ruthann; their spouses, Krista and Dan; and grandchildren, Kennedy (Zachary), Mallory, Ryan, and Adam. Jim is survived by his siblings John (Anne), Pat (Joan), and Marie, as well as many friends, cousins, inlaws, nieces, and nephews.
Jim employed his military learnings post discharge, working as the head bartender at the illustrious London Club and serving everyone from Johnny Cash and Jerry Van Dyke to England’s Prince Phillip. With a growing family, Jim decided to train for and earn his barber’s license and will be best remembered as half of the team of “Ron and Jim”, owners of Paul’s Barber Shop, a longtime landmark of the Byron Village downtown. Even though the shop closed in 2004, Jim continued to cut hair out of his house well into his seventies, never one to miss out on an opportunity to discuss current events and make a buck. In 2018, Jim and Bev moved to Cambridge in order to be closer to their children, and to her final days, Jim was superheroic in his efforts to keep Bev safe and happy, singing to her through zoom calls when COVID protocols forced them apart at the end.
Jim loved the movies, collecting thousands of videos (Betamax to Blu-rays), and could remember the smallest details of every film he ever saw. He loved to travel and explore, hauling his family and a tent-trailer from Canada’s Atlantic to Pacific coasts and all over the United States (and again, could remember the dates and details of every place he ever visited). Jim had an especially memorable trip to Hollywood, flew in a helicopter over the North Dakota badlands, rode shotgun on a Nascar racetrack, and made many trips to Florida with Bev in their retirement. Jim was proud of his Italian heritage (even if his language lessons were dubious) and was happiest making pasta and sauce, singing opera (poorly but proudly), and preparing zeppoles at Christmas. Jim loved gardening, canning his famous relish, bowling, playing cards, telling jokes and stories, and sipping a fine whiskey; he was the life of every party, even if he grumbled and fretted right up until the first guest arrived. Jim worked hard all of his life, held his family close with love and pride, only barely resented his grandkids taking the last slice of watermelon (getting his revenge by giving his granddaughters little boy haircuts until they started school), and has earned his rest.
Jim's family would like to thank Dr. Holling and her palliative team at ParaMed for the excellent care and support that they provided for him and the family in his last weeks at home. Jim spent his last two days in hospice at Lisaard House and his family can’t thank the staff there enough for the exceptional and compassionate care that he received. Arrangements will be made for a private interment with a celebration of life to follow at a later date. In lieu of flowers, donations to Lisaard House may be made in the name of James Thompson.
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My father-in-law has passed away at eighty-four, and while that age is above average — and considering his health issues, actually astounding — no matter how you look at it, it feels like it came to pass too soon. As I wrote above in Jim's obituary, the care that he took of his wife in her declining years was nothing short of superheroic, and after Bev's passing just eight weeks earlier, there was nothing Jim's family wanted more than for him to rest and to enjoy some measure of time free of responsibility. But it was not meant to be.
As I wrote here after Bev's passing, Jim had been hospitalised himself during her final days, battling a post-surgical infection. He wasn't able to properly process his grief over that loss until he got back home again (Jim has always gotten a little fuzzy-brained during long hospital stays), but when he was back home, he was looking strong and had many opportunities to thank Dave and Ruthann for all of the help and support they had given him and their Mom over the years. As much as he seemed to be on the mend, nothing seemed to actually improve: he had a catheter, oxygen, required anti-nausea pills to keep the little food he could eat down (hydromorphone, which is also a narcotic opiod and would make him loopy), could hardly walk down the hallway without taking a break, and was having difficulty breathing. Because Jim had so many underlying issues (congestive heart failure, a recently discovered rare and aggressive form of cancer, reduced kidney function), and further invasive treatments were ruled out as too risky, the medical team decided to put Jim under palliative care. Once again I'll call it a blessing that I was still in a COVID lockdown and could spend as much time hanging out with my beloved father-in-law as was asked of me, but as he spent most of his time sleeping, wasn't very interested in eating what he would ask me to cook for him, and sometimes required me to help him to get on and off of the toilet, I often got the impression that he wished it wasn't me who got to see him at his weakest.
Despite a truly impressive roster of home care professionals (doctors, nurses, PSWs) who came by the house to provide care, much of his personal and middle of the night care was provided by his daughter, and of course that became exhausting on top of full time work. Dave slept over there to take his turn a couple of times before they were informed that a PSW was available to spend the night if needed, and even though that took off some of the pressure, Ruthann would still need to help that PSW late at night if her Dad needed to be moved; and besides, every new person — in an unending stream of new persons — who entered the house would make the dogs bark, and that would get tempers and impatience soaring. When Jim spent several days in a row in bed, only opening his eyes for short periods — when he reached the point where we no longer believed that we could provide adequate care — we asked the visiting nurse practitioner about hospice. She waggled her head back and forth a couple of times and said that hospice was reserved for people in the last three months of their lives but she could probably make the case that we had reached that stage. She made a call, discovered that there were open beds at the nearest (and most preferred) facility, and Jim was moved the same day. He lived two more days under the outstanding care at Lisaard House.
When Dave had called me on that second day to say that his Dad was failing fast and I should come to Lisaard directly after work (for it was decided that I should go back to work as soon as the outside care ramped up), I couldn't have predicted the sight that would greet me: this big, gregarious man looked like a pale corpse in that hospital bed, the flesh pulled tight across his cheeks, each breath rattling wet and phlegmy in his throat. Dave and Ruthann stood at his sides, telling stories and stroking the hair back from their father's cool forehead, and when the nurse came in a couple hours later to check on repositioning him, she nodded to us and said that it would be any minute. And it was that fast: Jim tensed, fluttered his eyes without quite opening them, and breathed his last. Dave had also called his Uncle John, who had immediately gotten into his car for the five hour drive to his big brother's side, but he was too late to see him one last time alive (although he had come to visit after Jim's last release from hospital, on what we would later recognise as Jim's last best day). We waitied until John and his family arrived and then watched together as Jim's body was removed by the funeral home to a recording of Mario Lanza singing Ave Maria.
On Tuesday, July 27th, Jim and Bev were both interred at the Dorchester Union Cemetery, in the family plot beside Bev's parents. Dave, Rudy, Dan, Kennedy, Ken, and I served as pallbearers for Jim's coffin and Mallory carried her Granny's urn to her final resting place. A heartwarming and personal service was performed by one of Dave's oldest friends, now a lay minister, and as per Jim's wishes, a Catholic priest was also presiding. (As Dave says, his Dad would've hated to miss heaven on a technicality but there was certainly more meaning found in our friend's words than those of an unfamiliar priest who referred to them as Brother Thompson and [checks notes, repeatedly] Mrs. Thompson; I am, however, very grateful that a priest here in town made a short notice house call to administer the Last Rites upon Jim's request back when we all thought he had plenty of time left.) There was only close family in attendance at the funeral (damn that COVID) and a celebration of life will be planned for when we can all get together properly.
I love that picture at the top: On their last zoom call before Bev's final decline, Jim held his phone close so that she wouldn't realise that he was in the hospital and possibly worry about him. They joked and teased together on that call, as they always did; they sang together a few lines of , "I love you a bushel and a peck", as they always did; and despite cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer's, and a worldwide pandemic, they found a way to connect and support each other. As they always did.
The last time I saw Jim before he was sent to hospice, he was in his hospital bed at home and his banker had come by the house to see if he could sign a few papers related to his and Bev's estates. He hadn't been awake yet that morning and wasn't able to keep his eyes open for more than a few seconds at a time, but I sat by his side as Dave went into the hallway with the banker to discuss options. Dan came in and stood on the other side of Jim, and as he started talking, Jim's eyes blinked open kind of blindly, he looked around the room with confusion (and maybe fear?), and when his eyes settled on me he gave that oh-so-familiar self-deprecating laugh-frown that I've seen a thousand times over the years; always as though he has something to apologise for but will just laugh it off as an inside joke between the two of us. I loved him and I will miss him and I don't blame him for choosing the ultimate rest when his work here was finally done. Here's to knowing that he found that better place where he’ll never need to work at all or even change his socks, and little streams of whiskey will come a-tricklin’ through the rocks.
