The Journal is sad to announced the passing of Marc Roberts, our friend, colleague, trusted partner, and unequalled distribution manager. The following tribute was written by his daughter Laura.
On Monday, March 28, 2022, my dad passed away at St. Joseph’s Hospice after a difficult journey with bile duct cancer that began on Thanksgiving 2019. He was 58. As with everything, he braved this all with smiles and jokes. He stayed positive, not because he expected a miracle, but because he didn’t see the point in worrying about things he couldn’t fix. His motto for two years was, “It is what it is.” He also loved, “You do the best you can with what you’ve got.”
He was (unsurprisingly) beloved by the oncology and palliative nurses, many of whom couldn’t believe how positive he still was. Even in his final weeks, he joked as much as he could with the nurses at the hospice.
He didn’t tell many people that he was sick, not because it was a secret, but because he wanted to live as normally as he could for as long as he could. He never wanted people to worry about him or treat him differently. He just wanted to keep working at the Sarnia Journal, a job that he truly loved, for as long as possible, and spend all the time he could with his family.
Anyone who knew him could see that the things he valued most in life were family and hard work, in that order. Through this whole experience, he worried and cared about his wife and children more than he ever did himself.
Words could never be enough to explain how incredible my dad was, and how much I loved him. He was the bravest person I knew, the strongest person I knew, the smartest person I knew, the funniest person I knew, and much more. All of these things, all at once.
I’ll miss him so, so much, as will my brother Jordan, my mom Sue, his sisters Jaclyn and Edyn, and so many more people. Again, nothing I could say measures up to how I feel. He meant the world to us, and I know we meant the world to him too.
My dad wrote so thoughtfully about death and grief. It was a part of life that he unfortunately knew well, even when he was a child. I hope he’s with his father, Jack Roberts, who passed when my dad was too young to have very many memories of him; I hope he’s with his cousins Sharon and Howard Roberts, who he and his sisters spent their summers with in Indiana as children; I hope he’s with all of his aunts and uncles, who he loved to share stories about; and his mother-in-law, Dorie Hudak, who was precious to him.
Most of all, I hope he’s with his beloved mother, Edythe (Harris) Roberts who (as he told me just last year) he has missed every single day since she passed.
I’m comforted to think that he has finally been reunited with her.
He has left behind a lot of people who miss him including his wife of 31 years, Susan Roberts (nee Hudak), son Jordan and daughter Laura, sisters Jaclyn and Edyn Roberts and niece Cameron, sister-in-laws, Judy Robinson (John), Cathy Ager, (Martin), and Tom Hudak (Michelle).
My dad hated the word “goodbye.” It felt too final to him. So, we never said it. I trust and believe that, not only will we all see him again someday, but that he’ll be with us––my brother, my mom, his sisters, his nieces and nephews––all the time, watching over us and protecting us just as he did when he was alive.
I can already feel his strength and humour carrying us all through.
Donations can be made to Bluewater Health Palliative Care and St. Joseph’s Hospice.
A private service will be held, and a celebration of life announced later.
