Stuart believed in love and he believed in good. And he knew, that on some level, they were the same thing and that one fostered the other. He shed light on both, especially in the smallest details, where he knew life always lives largest. And he showed us in his stories and his monologues, and especially through the Arthur Awards and "Vinyl Café Story Exchange," how often it happens in this country.

He was a unifying force for Canada, the best of what the CBC has always had to offer. Stuart was a consistently acute observer of the Canadian identity, of its commonalities and stark, but enriching, differences. But he was not academic about it. Rather, he was involved.

He was, at heart, a builder. He constructed bridges between our islands through stories and essays and great Canadian music. And by immersing himself in every town, village and great big city the "Vinyl Café" visited. He swam in our oceans, dropped deep into our mines, rode our trains, picked our fruit, skated our ice. And told stories about it all.

He made us less isolated: helping listeners in steel and glass towers feel the intimacy of small town Main Street, and rural Canada understand that urban living too had its joys. He introduced one world to the other and blurred their edges. As my daughter says, in a time of unprecedented change he gave us inherited memory.

I am eternally thankful, as is she, for what Stuart gave Jess. And I know the reverse was true because he told me many times.

The relationship between Stuart and Jess was theirs and theirs alone, but he often revealed big chunks of it to his radio and concert audiences. They were best friends, they bickered good-naturedly, they bushwhacked their way together through the mundane details and the Great Ideas, they observed Canada together through both micro and macro lenses.

And they laughed and laughed and laughed.

Stuart's stories and monologues will remain gateways to something larger: understanding, acceptance, love and the healing gift of humour.

Stuart understood that well-crafted story-telling is a far better tool than straight facts to communicate the real truths in life. The telling of a story might be organic but it has essence, a core, which no deluge of "fact" can change.

Life is made up of stories and bits of stories, and one person's life is, after all, a story played out in three dimensions.

And while one story may end, story-telling does not. And must not.

smilton@thespec.com

905-526-3268 | @miltonatthespec