Crusader's life showed an overlooked virtue

His name was Janis "John" Lejins and he was a Winnipeg legend of sorts. A legend who acquired a legion of admirers, from cops and clergy, to lawyers and his Scrabble-tournament pals.

And then there were the others.

Those who felt threatened by this intelligent, fundamentally gentle and caring man's sometimes tenacious -- some would say obsessive -- behaviour. Mostly they were a select number of executive-suite employees at Manitoba Public Insurance, with whom John carried on a 16-year claims grievance -- or, in his mind, a search for justice. He felt he was inadequately compensated for a crash in which another driver came through a red light.

His tenacity in pursuing his claim caused the corporation to seek restraining orders, which John repeatedly violated, landing him in the remand centre and Free Press headlines. But over those years the only bodily harm John ever did was to an MPI soft-drink cooler. And, so far as I know, there was only one life John ever threatened to take.

His own.

It was Joe McLellan, a Roman Catholic deacon who made a point of telling me John had died.

Not by his own hand, though.

Joe was one of John's legion of admirers, and in recent years, after his every legal appeal had been lost, it was Joe whom John would call.

And Joe would listen.

John wasn't always easy to listen to, though, even with his soft, low and deliberate way of speaking.

Yet, Joe was far from the only person in the city to whom John reached out and who would make time for him.

"He was depressed a lot," Joe said, "and whenever he got depressed, he would call people."

I asked Joe why he took the time to listen.

"God and Jesus would listen," Joe answered. "So I should."

The last time was in January, and what Joe heard then was even more difficult to hear.

John had terminal cancer.

"He said, 'I'm going to be all right. The doctor says I might have three weeks to six months to live.' "

Then on the day after Valentine's Day, Hildegard Lejins' phone rang in the Prince Albert, Sask., home where she lives alone. John, the only child of the 86-year-old widow, was calling long-distance from his hospice bed.

It was his mother and late father's own struggles in life that undoubtedly shaped John's concern for justice.

They were witnesses to mass murder during the Second World War in Latvia, a trauma they carried to Canada, like luggage they dared not fully unpack. That, and his mother's crusading for animal welfare and John's own love of animals and drive to protest perceived wrongs.

Now, on this late winter night, with his life almost over, her 59-year-old son was calling with a plea.

"Please let me go."

Later, his mother would recall her anguished reaction.

She screamed.

"I'll call you tomorrow," John said. He died the next day.

"I don't know if there's a lesson to be learned from this," Joe McLellan said. "But it was a life. And he was a good guy. He was someone who stood out in a crowd."

I think there is a lesson to be learned from John's life story, which was affectionally told in a Free Press obituary by Gordon Gold, a city police officer and university friend. Gold characterized John as a kind, free spirit, "who sought very little in life for himself, but gave all he could of his time, support and love to his family and many friends."

This from a man who had so little materially and who had struggled with depression since his university days.

Actually, there is more than one lesson to take from John's life.

But one resonates the loudest.

The power of listening.

And if there is anyone in this city who knows about that, it's Tim Wall, who heads up the crisis line at Klinic.

To be heard, to be understood and to be recognized, Wall says, is a fundamental need for all of us.

"And the lack of that results in a tremendous amount of suffering for people," Wall added. "So when we do take time to listen, to communicate that we have understood people... and that we have seen them and recognized them, I think that can go an awful long way in helping to diminish someone's pain and suffering."

Which reminds me of something Joe McLellan recalled John would often say after they spoke.

"Well, thanks for listening. At least I feel better now."

John Lejins' MPI crusade was characterized by one of his lawyers as heroic, but I think his most important odyssey was his lonely, never-ending search for people who would take the time to hear him, to understand, to care. But, as Tim Wall suggested, fundamentally that is what we're all looking for, isn't it? People like Joe McLellan and the rest of Lejins' legion who offered one of the greatest gifts of all.

The gift of truly listening.

gordon.sinclair@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition May 8, 2012 B1