Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Remembering a great friend

Remembering Peter

This past weekend, a very dear family friend passed away suddenly in his sleep while away teaching an aviation class in Edmonton.  Our family happend to be in Edmonton on a hockey tournament, and heard the sad news when we returned home. My heart goes out to the Shewring family, Aki, Lesley, Diane and Stephen and all of your extended relatives, we are very sad for your loss, and ours in that we lost a dear friend. 

The Shewrings are neighbours of my sisters in Sidney, BC living across the street from each other for over 25 years, so everytime we visited my sister's house from Spain or now from Calgary, we looked forward to visits from the Shewrings.  There were many wonderful meals shared over wine at my sisters table and on the back deck with assortments of interesting friends that often stopped by for the great food and conversation, but mostly for the company gathered there.  That company often included Peter Shewring, his exciting life provided wonderful conversation, funny stories from the skies, and the best humour. Peter was the source of some of my greatest jokes which I would dutifully write down and take back to Tenerife and share with my friends, thanks Peter for all the great material, for years people thought I was funny, I owe it all to you and those Pilots who sure have great jokes!

There were many evenings when Peter would pop over with a bottle of wine and a video under his arm, and we'd all drink some wine and watch a video. Often one of us would fall asleep, but we all still enjoyed the movie, even if we missed parts, because Peter would make us laugh anyway even if the movie was a dud.

He kindly brought my son Eric a neat poster of the inside view of the control panel on a Lear jet after he had designed some planes and interiors on his laptop and showed them to Peter, he still has the poster.

Over the years we holidayed with the Shewrings, they visited us in Tenerife (AKI sent me my first rice cooker after their visit, where I burnt the rice for our dinner LOL and I still use it)! The ladies in the family joined us for a trip to Cancun and Cozumel in the early 90's (I think) when I worked in timeshare and over the years we really enjoyed the many great times. I will have to dig up those photos!

Peter, so long and happy trails, what a wonderful friend, your light will shine in our memories, will really miss the fun times, but I believe we will all meet again someday in the skies!

Miss Tenerife AKA Miss Calgary, as you used to call me
Obituary http://www.legacy.com/CAN-Victoria/Obituaries.asp?Page=LifeStory&PersonID=141052304
My mother found this great tribute to him by his fellow pilots, and students from his classes.


http://www.avcanada.ca/forums2/viewtopic.php?f=54&t=63340&sid=409b45fbc0914f6653cbd6990729f1d1

1 comment:

Michelle said...

This is SO lovely Gilly. Made me cry. I sent it to Aki. Love Mich