Kenneth Donald Bruinsma-Cajic.Courtesy of family
Kenneth Donald Bruinsma-Cajic: Father. Musician. Woodworker. DIY-er. Born June 27, 1963, in Clinton, Ont.; died May 7, 2021, in Toronto, of cancer; aged 57.
Ken could have been considered a modern-day Renaissance man and while his talents might not have rivalled those of Leonardo da Vinci, Ken developed skills and competencies at many different things. He might be best remembered, however, for the value he placed on relationships.
Ken always marched to a different drummer. When he married Georgina in 1995, he flipped the script by adding her last name to his surname and changed all his government ID. Ken’s first daughter Hali, born during a relationship in his 20s and whom he raised as a single father, used her mother’s last name, not his.
Ken and Georgina first locked eyes in the mid-1980s in the halls of Sheridan College – she was immediately attracted to the depth of his blue eyes – and when they reconnected years later it took Ken a while to convince Georgina (and her Serbian father!) that this Dutchman was worthy of her love and commitment. When they married, with Hali as the ring bearer, they bought a house in Toronto’s west end and started adding to the family with Annalise, Evan Blake and Kaeden.
Friends and family marvelled at Ken’s self-reliance and individualism. In his spare time, he played guitar or piano, having taught himself both. Ken played bass guitar in a couple of rock bands in college and later played in the Toronto music scene with Human Interest. Always a trouble-shooter, Ken found a way to modify his motorcycle so that he could carry his guitar and amp to practices and gigs.
He loved woodworking and often said if he could start again, he would have been a carpenter. As it was, Ken had a number of careers. He studied media arts at Sheridan College (supporting himself by driving a taxi at night) and ended up at the animation studio Nelvana editing children’s television series, including The Care Bears and Babar. In the 1990s, he transitioned to computer programming and when the dot-com bubble burst, he retrained and found employment driving an 18-wheeler for Purolator.
But his love of working with wood never waned. The family home contains lovingly restored furniture, including reupholstered chairs and couches and marquetry-crafted end tables. Tucked into a couple of the corners of the living room are several electric guitar bodies he made of hardwood. In the backyard, he built two garden sheds to house woodworking and mechanic’s tools, as he insisted on repairing and maintaining the family’s two cars himself.
Ken spent hours upon hours with his children. He encouraged and supported their interests but there was nothing Ken liked better on weekend afternoons than playing board games with his kids and their friends. He liked to change the official rules and help other players with their strategies. Ken always brought a bunch of board games to family gatherings, introducing them to many obscure ones. He even created a prototype of his own tabletop game that everyone agreed was too complicated to play, but that’s not surprising, coming from a man who preferred to use a Dvorak keyboard and wondered why everyone did not make the switch.
In some ways, Ken was a study in contrasts. He rejected organized religion in his teens but in his 30s, he embraced spirituality, namely, the esoteric teachings of George Gurdjieff, an Armenian philosopher. Ken rebelled in his youth yet kept a traditional marriage, celebrating 25 years in 2020. He showed real artistic talent in creating art and music, however, was unafraid of getting his hands dirty, installing new roofs and backyard water ponds. Ken shunned the conventional, even when it came to his wishes for his remains. He chose a process called aquamation, or water cremation.
In today’s culture of ambition, Ken was remarkable: He valued relationships more than the pursuit of materialistic values and social status.
Natalie Cajic is Ken’s sister-in-law.
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