Simon Lono was passionate about doing the right thing in advocacy, politics and leaving his community a better place.
Those who knew and loved him are grieving a great mind and fine human being gone too soon.
“He was one of the most civic-minded people I have ever known,” said Robert Janes, who became best friends with Lono in grades school at Pius X in St. John’s.
They went on to Gonzaga High School, where both served on the “Reach for the Top” team, taking the provincial championship in 1979. Both were heavily involved in youth parliaments, nationally and provincially and debated together.
“I just think that he should be a role model to a lot of people. He just believed in getting involved in his community and staying involved and making it a better place,” Janes said.
Lono was just 56 when he died Friday. In 2013, he was diagnosed with primary myelofibrosis, a rare type of bone marrow cancer that disrupts the body’s normal production of blood cells, according to the Mayo Clinic.
His obituary noted Lono turned his struggle with myelofibrosis into an opportunity to advocate, standing up for patients whose rare disorders had been neglected by health-care systems and governments.
He was well-known for his political involvement and for advancing public debate.
“Simon always made his trenchant, witty voice heard in public debates on the economic, political and social issues that matter in Newfoundland and Labrador. He also had an international awareness which helped him to process and prioritize important issues at home. He helped refine and clarify the voices of others, preparing political leaders and candidates for debates, drafting policy options and legislation, writing speeches for premiers, ministers and opposition members, and giving wise counsel and advice (whether his insight was popular or not) to anyone who needed it,” the obituary reads.
In just one example of many in which Lono stood up for someone who could not, he wrote a 2013 Telegram letter to the editor that reminded media they had not been sensitive about the passing of a downtown woman recognizable to many.
“So when the media decides to take notice of the passing of such a ‘colourful iconic character’ in such a superficial way, they trivialize her daily struggle just to be part of the same world as us,” Lono wrote, adding that the woman — who lived in his neighbourhood — most certainly wasn’t receiving the medical assistance she deserved.
“If you want to consider Marilyn (known by the nickname Trixie) an icon, then she should be considered iconic of the failure of our social welfare net.”
Ed Hollett, one of Lono’s best friends, wrote an eloquent tribute on his popular blog, “The Sir Robert Bond Papers.”
“And so, we remember. We recall. Frantically. As if the memories will make the hard truth go away. As if the memories will replace all of the things that could have been or would have been. But that will never be. Because there is a hard truth. Simon is dead,” Hollett wrote.
Many friends had described Lono with three common words — “decent, honest principled.”
Hollett noted Lono, a Liberal supporter, loved politics because it was about people.
He’d run provincially and for St. John’s city council — he wanted the city to have an auditor general. He was also a dedicated volunteer for the Lantern Festival.
Lono and his wife, Deidre, had one of those great love stories, falling madly in love and happily blending their families, Hollett noted.
He can’t remember when exactly he met Lono, but they travelled in the same circles at Memorial University.
Hollett told The Telegram that Lono was a poster child for how someone can have a great impact in politics without ever being elected.
His legacy, said Hollett, is how he treated others with dignity and respect, for what he did for the community, for public speaking, for the political and for the little things that thousands of people are now remembering him for.
“Out of his action and involvement and example comes what people remember and that is his legacy,” Hollett said.
Lono’s love of debate was passed on to younger generations and his support for the Newfoundland and Labrador Speech and Debate Union continues in death, with donations to support the organization.
St. John’s consultant and Telegram columnist Martha Muzychka met Lono while working on the Memorial University campus newspaper, “The Muse,” and said she knew him best in later years through his work with model parliaments and debating.
“I knew a number of parents whose kids, including my own, were active participants in various debating opportunities. The annual debating camps were very popular. I think Simon understood how important it was to engage youth in small ‘p’ political work as community building,” Muzychka said.
“He also modelled the value of coaching and skills building too in helping youth learn how to argue effectively, logically, and persuasively. The absence created by his passing will be felt for a long time.”
She wasn’t surprised to learn Lono had become deeply involved in politics when she returned to the province in 1987.
“He was always into political processes and I think every discussion was an opportunity to engage and to go deeper instead of relying on facile black and white statements,” Muzychka said.
Justice Minister Andrew Parsons said Lono — who had various involvements with the Liberal caucus over the years and was working fulltime there in 2011 when the caucus was a small bunch in opposition — taught MHAs, staffers and political insiders many valuable lessons.
He wrote them handbook on filibusters, for instance.
“For someone coming in to politics fresh, I was very lucky to say I had someone like him on my team,” Parsons said.
Lono was also a great conversationalist.
“I don’t know if he wasn’t one of the most pleasant people I had ever been around in an environment of high stress and plenty of potential to be extreme. ... He was just a good guy.
“When visualize him in my mind I see him with his shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows, the suspenders and the glasses.”
Despite the fact that Lono lived in St. John’s, and Robert Janes was in Victoria, B.C., they remained lifelong friends.
“He was just one of those people that even though we lived on opposite sides of the country, we could pick up the conversation about anything exactly where we left it off,” Janes said.
Lono’s parents were Quebecois — his father ran a roofing business — and their home was a vibrant place in a time when St. John’s was not as multicultural, but more traditional, Janes recalled. On Christmas Eve, the home was filled with people, different food and lively conversation.
“I always loved how engaged they were. It was a big, different world,” Janes said.
Among Lono’s survivors are his wife Deirdre Greene Lono, children Simon and Diana and step-children Sarah and Samuel.
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