I met Ivan back when I worked as a Summer Program Facilitator. At that time, there was a role called Peer Leader. It was an opportunity for people diagnosed with developmental disabilities to work for wages, helping to run the program. Each facilitator was paired with a Peer Leader, and my partner was Ivan.
Since then, he happened to move into the area where Lee-Anne and I live. I would see him occasionally in the neighbourhood and often at local events.
Recently, Lee-Anne saw a Facebook notice from a mutual friend asking about what happened to him. I did a little digging and apparently he has passed due to cancer. It must have been especially aggressive since it looks like he was diagnosed only about a month beforehand. He was a year younger than me.
https://erbgood.com/tribute/details/18298/Ivan-Vincent/obituary.html
It reminds me of when I was in college and a fellow student, Bri, got diagnosed with a rare condition and passed at the age of 19. Someone that didn't know her well asked me about it and I said "She didn't seem like the type of person that would die". The person replied, "Everyone keeps saying that. What does that mean?"
I'm not quite sure. Maybe it's just when it happens to someone young with no obvious additional health consideration. I mentioned that Ivan had another diagnosis, but as far as I'm aware, completely unrelated to cancer. Maybe when someone's life has already been impacted by one rare struggle, it just feels unfair when another, unrelated and unlikely misfortune comes along.
He was a musician. I remember that he'd written a song called "The Old House Mystery" and made a music video on YouTube. Later, I found his channel. I think he took that specific video down but he had kept making music, so I subscribed. As a courtesy he did the same for me, which I thought was funny because I've never uploaded anything there. Sometimes when people would talk about channel numbers, I would brag about my one subscriber.
Lee-Anne met him at an event hosted by Grand River Hospital. It featured live music by The Strumbellas followed by a drone show. I actually did a blog post on it. Ivan had come for the music and left before the drones came out. This past weekend was the Bestival, which is an event where I'd run into him in the past. Two stages blocking off Belmont ave with live music alternating between them. The type of place you'd expect to see Ivan.
