Martin Wade Swinton

Martin peacefully passed away on May 9, 2022, surrounded by love. He is survived by his wife, Andrea, and son, Kurt.

On September 28, 1962, Martin was born in Toronto to Elizabeth Peters (pre-deceased) who was a teenage mother ill-equipped for motherhood. His early years were unstable. He never knew his birth father. When Martin was a young boy, his mother met Terry Swinton, who became Martin's father. Terry gave Martin the gift of the Swinton name and Martin stood a little taller in life because of it. Life started to look up and a vagabond existence bouncing from Toronto, Long Island, and Palm Beach to Malaysia followed.

An early dyslexia diagnosis led to homeschooling until Martin attended the University of Toronto. He obtained an Archeology degree through sheer stubbornness and immense effort.

In 1991, Martin's first wife, Margaret Lesperance (pre-deceased), gave birth to Kurt.

Martin loved Kurt fiercely.

Martin provided Kurt with the stability and safety that Martin did not have in his own early years. This was his most outstanding achievement and the only one that really mattered.

Being part of a family and a dad was all he ever wanted. Martin shared his love of early jazz, old movies, and antiques with Kurt.

In 1997, Andrea and Martin met and married within six months. It was a good 25-year run with the typical ups and downs that married life brings, but always there were laughs.

Martin was a polymath. You were awed by his wide-ranging and deep knowledge of countless subjects if you liked him. You were irritated and annoyed by this gift if you weren't keen on him. Woe was the person who debated Martin on geopolitical issues and historical dates; rarely did Google prove him wrong. If only Martin had been able to monetize this ability.

Martin loved gardening. He revived many a dried-up old plant, loved to rev up a chainsaw to trim trees and shared his gardening secrets when asked. He was a home chef and home baker extraordinaire. Natural ingredients were his thing, from his meatballs and roast chicken to his butter tarts and pumpkin cheesecake made with real pumpkin and fresh ground spices.

He cried at television commercials, was the first to hit the dance floor surprising many with his sense of rhythm and had a remarkable talent for mimicking accents.

He was stubborn and opinionated and gentle and sensitive.

He was a proud Luddite who rarely used his cell phone, accidentally cut off calls and never learned how to retrieve voicemails.

His happy place was a single malt scotch or pint of Guinness and a curse-filled backgammon game.

He was never one to follow orders, and entrepreneurial life was for him; some ventures were successful, others less so. He was one of the few who entered the arena, dared greatly, and knew both victory and defeat.

The instability and difficulty of Martin's childhood contrasted with his calm and pain-free palliative transition.

Martin's memory will be forever etched in Kurt’s and Andrea's hearts.

Thank you to Dr. Chen, his doctor for 40 years, who checked in on him at the end. Thanks to Pat Swinton for the visits and Terry Swinton for the name. To Mary Lou Dorn and Lynda Oliver, thanks for welcoming him and kindly sharing stories of his great-grandfather. Thanks to all who appreciated his unique qualities. To the team at Sunnybrook, thank you.

In memory of Martin, pay it forward with a random act of kindness, hold a door for a stranger, load someone's groceries into their car or give flowers to a loved one, as Martin regularly did.

Please email the little-used, never-circulated email address martinswinton007@gmail.com for details on the celebration of Martin's life.