2 days ago
The remarkable ex-Leaf Mark Kirton succumbs to ALS
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Everyone should have a Mark Kirton in their lives
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Someone who makes today better than yesterday. Someone who makes tomorrow better than today.
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There aren't many of them in our world — those built-in genuine optimists who you visit and walk away feeling better about the world, about your life, about the sun that is shining because you spent some time with him. Sometimes it may have been just a visit, or a phone call or a text message or just an email.
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But always with a smile, maybe a joke, maybe a little laughter, something to feel right about when really there wasn't all that much to smile or laugh about. The former hockey player, Mark Kirton lost his battle with the dreadful disease ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease, on the weekend and I don't know if I've ever known anyone quite like him before, or anyone I admired more.
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We first met in 2021 when he went public with his personal fight and from there a relationship was born. ALS is a monster that takes away your life, bite by bite, piece by piece. It's different for everyone suffering. Some lose their hands first. Some lose their feet. Some are confined to wheelchairs. Some can speak, some can't. Some can see, some can't, It's one part, then another, no timetable for how it goes or how it tears your life apart.
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Kirton was still selling real estate in Oakville when we first met, working from home, working from a wheelchair, still talking fast, smiling, pushing the product, forever ready to make the next deal.
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But as he was still working, he began to turn his work to his own disease. What he could go for ALS? How he could find a way to raise more money? Why is it there were drugs in America that weren't available in Canada? Why is it there wasn't enough known about the disease and not enough research being done.
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He had more questions than answers, and no where to turn for money.
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So he started ALS Action Canada and began fundraisers for the disease. He wasn't a big name — he wasn't his former teammate, Borje Salming — but he was so engaging.
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He got the Canadian NHL teams involved in fundraising. He started the ALS Super Fund, which all NHL clubs began events to contribute to. From ALS Action Canada to the ALS Super Fund, he started PALS — an organization for people suffering from ALS.
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He wanted to connect people going through the same difficulties. He wanted more communication. Just last week, he had planned to meet with television's Ron Maclean and former Maple Leaf captain, Darryl Sittler, to get to work on his latest project.
