Scott’s Blog

In the past year, three men who influenced my life in significant ways have passed away. A year ago my father, who taught me everything important about family and helped me determine my values, passed away from illness. He taught and motivated me to become the man I am today.

In October, Allen Williams died in a plane crash. He was the father of one of my closest childhood friends, and the person who introduced me to the profession of engineering. He influenced my choice of education and his company was my first employer.

A little over two weeks ago, Reagan Williams, Allen’s son, also died in a plane crash in an astronomically unlikely duplicate of his father’s accident. Reagan was one of my closest childhood friends, from age 10 onwards. We swam together on the Olympian Swim Club and afterwards on Keyano Swim Club and then U of A Varsity Swimming. We experienced many rites of passage together, including sibling rivalries, first girlfriends, first breakups, swimming milestones like making nationals, winning national medals, breaking records together on relays, going to university in the same field of study, summer jobs, partying, and all the stuff that you share growing up. We also occasionally fought like brothers (but not as much as he did with is actual brother Sheldon). Even when I went to work in Calgary and we didn’t see much of each other for a few years, we still kept in touch and got together when we could. Whenever we reconnected it always felt to me like we had just spoken yesterday. I was proud to have Reagan as one of my groomsmen at Jenn and my wedding, along with Mark and Dean, the other two of my closest buds. For years I’ve thought of Reagan as family.

He was the most fun-loving and funny people I’ve known in my life so far, and he excelled at living life. He was a big goof as a kid, and I never lost that mental image of him even to this day, despite his lovely wife, committed fatherhood, respectable suits, and his influential nature in his business. He helped make many events in my youth fun and memorable, and always played the largest role in all our mutual adventures.

During the past couple of weeks while coming to grips with Reagan’s accident, I’ve had the opportunity to speak with many of Reagan’s (and my) early friends, and also with ones he made more recently in his life. A common thread in our conversations was that it really seemed like Reagan was the glue that held so many of us together. With him gone, it will take a herculean effort to maintain all the personal connections that he was at the center of, and no single person will be able to pull that off. I intend to do as much as I can to make sure that I stay connected to all those friends.

During a chat with Tanja (Oswald) Nelson on Facebook (who was my first girlfriend many years ago and best friends with Reagan’s first girlfriend Jill (Hayden) Jackson), I said this about Reagan, and it really expresses what I and many others feel about him: Everyone who met him thought of him as a friend. I think nobody but his wife Mandy could claim to be his best friend, but many people would say he was the best kind of friend. I feel privileged to have known him and I hope to stay in touch with Mandy and see Reagan’s kids grow up. I would appreciate the opportunity to help in some small way to let their boys know what a great person their father was.