30 September 2022, Montreal, Canada
The first day we met Matt. Anybody want to hear about that?
I say “we” meaning our tight little subgroup within the 86/87 McGill Engineering class – or another way to put it – the gang that failed Professor Knystautys’s Mech 1 class in Fall 1986, plus me and Ohayon who arrived a semester later, and then of course Rob Megeney who joined in Fall 87, instantly became one of us… and promptly failed Professor Knystautus’s Mech 1 Class. All kidding aside, I could not have been more fortunate to fall in with that crew.
When I say “tight”, most of you know exactly what I mean – that extraordinarily close bond our extended group of McGill Engineers share. It is an exceedingly rare and special connection, like family really, and it only strengthens over time. I never practiced as an engineer but still wear this iron ring Vince Canonico gave me, now 30+ years ago, as a constant reminder of that unbreakable bond.
And it means everything when you tell Matt’s story. Because Matt fit, like a glove, in our family.
So back to that first day we met Matt. As an aside, Rob told me a story I never knew – Matt had arrived at McGill a week early to register for classes. After meeting and hanging out with us, he registered a week late!
It’s September 1988. I’d just turned 20, Matt was about to turn 19. It’s Orientation Week in the McConnell Engineering Building, and after participating in the day’s events at Open Air Pub we go out on the town. All the usual suspects are there – Marc, Rob, Cyril, who at that time were all living together in The Loft on St Urbain (not as luxurious as it sounds), John Keller, David Ohayon, Curtis, Louis and others.
But there’s another guy, he’s a new arrival to McGill Engineering and no one knows him, but he gravitates to us early on in the day and is there tagging along all night. Marc said it was like a puppy dog following us around! He’s the only first year among us. And he grows on us.
And, many hours later and after many watery Peel Pub pitchers, in the wee hours, a bunch of us end up crashing at the Loft. And in the morning, I wake up, on a mattress in the middle of the floor, fully clothed with my PPO lab coat still on, I hear snoring, I open my eyes, and Matt’s face is like right here, inches away from mine.
After that night he was never not a part of us, a part of who we were - and not just any part, a core part.
In the hours and days after we received the terrible news, talking through the pain and helping each other process the loss – and in those moments and in the blur of emotions, as people do in these cases, we talk about the essence of the person we lost, what they brought to the table, and that’s what we did about Matt.
And in these exchanges a theme emerged, and certain words around that theme.
Words like “core”, and others like:
“Hub” - Vince said that
“Glue” – heard that word a few times, and Marilyene mentioned it in a Facebook post.
There’s a term “glue guy”, especially well-known in hockey circles.
The glue guy:
• is great in the room…
• keeps things light and loose and makes sure his teammates have a great time, cracking jokes, inventing crazy games, playing pranks…
• goes the extra mile to create a positive atmosphere.
Calm and easy-going, the glue guy defuses tension, leading everyone towards harmony and away from dissension.
On any NHL team the glue guy is super important, often more important than the flashy superstars - no matter how things are going on the ice, or what controversies are happening on and off the ice, glue guys hold the team together.
THEIR VALUE TO THE TEAM CANNOT BE OVERSTATED.
THAT WAS OUR MATT – MATT WAS OUR GLUE GUY.
You know what I’m talking about. No matter the setting, Matt would make one of his wisecracks, and follow it up with that classic Matt little giggle at his own joke, and no matter what was going on everyone would feel better, and we would love him even more.
We are so tight, that didn’t just happen automatically – it took work, and Matty was one of those guys who did the work, and as the glue guy he made us even tighter.
And of course his influence didn’t only extend to McGill Engineering settings.
He touched my family too – back in 2019 Matt and Julie were in New York City for a sci-fi book convention and I took Katie, then an adolescent. She’s a big reader and had read his books, and loved them. He gave her a bag of swag, and signed some stuff, including a CD of Cyberstorm, which Angela, Ross and I listened to on the drive up from Manhattan yesterday.
He was also a core part of his immediate and extended family to be sure, and so many other little groups, and sometimes he brought them all together and then he was a core part of the collective of groups, the super group! No more obvious example of that when we attended his and Julie’s amazing wedding in Mexico.
And through him we got to meet the great people he attracted, like Julie, and then Joey and Stacey, and so on. That’s the takeaway for me, that’s what we all have in common. Matt wasn’t only our glue guy, chances are he was yours too.
So now together we suffer this terrible loss. But just like it was after that first night, Matt will never not be a part of us.
And Julie, know that you, Charlotte and Jack will never not be a part of us.
And we are never not going to miss him terribly, but together we will move on.
I’ll close with words from a couple of geniuses like Matt, in art and science, that make me think of him.
Leonard Cohen
"There is a crack, a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in"
Leonardo DaVinci
“A beautiful body perishes, but a work of art dies not.”
RIP Matty