Passing of Chris Lalonde – May 8, 2023

Dr. Christopher Edward Lalonde – also known as “Chris the Pro”, “Mondo”, “Dad”, “The Funkle”, and most recently “Pépère” – was born on Sept. 7, 1959 in St. Catharines, Ontario. He died on Monday, May 8, 2023 in Victoria, British Columbia, of complications of liver disease, at age 63.

Dr. Lalonde was an internationally recognized scientist based in the psychology department at the University of Victoria, whose research focused on the role of culture in reducing suicide risk among Indigenous youth. Dr. Lalonde’s innovative research focussed on how and why some First Nations communities had no suicides in decades, while others had disturbingly high rates. The key, his research posited, was Indigenous communities having control over their political and cultural lives.

Dr. Lalonde was the lead investigator in developing and evaluating the LE,NOṈET project at UVic, the goal of which is to create a welcoming environment at the university for Indigenous students. The project, Dr. Lalonde’s research showed, improved graduation rates among Indigenous students. He secured millions of dollars in research funding for UVic to study this important topic, was invited to present his results widely and promoted the adoption of such projects at other Canadian post-secondary institutions. He earned many accolades and awards throughout his academic career, including most recently, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the University of Victoria and the 2023 Exceptional Service Award from the Jean Piaget Society. Dr. Lalonde published 34 articles in peer-reviewed journals, 18 book chapters and monographs, and 20 reports. He also co-edited a book on Indigenous health and wellness.

But that was just Dr. Lalonde.

Chris “The Pro” began life in a bungalow in the south end of St. Catharines, Ontario. He had one glorious year of being an only child, with a single curly lock of hair so adorable that his baby picture was featured on the front page of the local newspaper. He was doted on and celebrated. But those halcyon days were short lived, as his mother gave birth to four more children in rapid succession. Chris soon learned that misbehaving was one way to get the parental attention to which he had become accustomed, and misbehave he did.

He would feed his siblings sand, tease them relentlessly, lock them in closets, and knock their tennis balls over the garage roof. He bought his first pack of cigarettes with his First Communion money, and smoked them behind the rabbit cage in the backyard. He beat all of his siblings at everything, and liked to hold his hands clasped over his head to celebrate, like a professional fighter (hence, The Pro).

As a teenager in the 70s, Chris became known as “Mondo”. He was the coolest hippy around, with his gorgeous Peter Frampton curls, hip-hugging wide-legged jeans and platform shoes, and a cigarette forever dangling on his lip. While perfecting his smoke rings, he stapled his empty red Du Maurier cigarette packs to the ceiling of his basement bedroom, like wallpaper. He blasted Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, and Kate Bush at painful decibel levels and served his friends beer in a teapot.

Parties at Chris’s first apartment on One Welland Avenue feature prominently in the memories of his siblings and their friends. Between those parties, bonfires down at the rapids and his very cool job at a local sub shop called Toad Hall, Mondo was barely scraping by in high school, to his mother’s chagrin. “You’re the smartest one of the bunch,” she would lament, to the consternation of his siblings, all straight-A students. 

But all that changed after Chris headed west to Vancouver, where he fell in love with developmental psychology and also with the beautiful red-headed woman who would become his wife. It is not clear if it was the former or the latter that smartened Chris up, but whenever he returned home after that, he was kind to his siblings, who didn’t know what to make of the new, nice Chris. Bad Chris never returned.

Chris and Laurie were married in 1985. By 1992, they had three children and over the next busy decade Chris worked toward his psychology degree and then his PhD at the University of British Columbia, as Laurie somehow managed the home front and earned her own degree in criminology. Chris became Dr. Lalonde in 1997, to his mother’s great delight, and began his teaching and research career at the University of Victoria.

But it was as a father and family man that Chris really came into his own.

Chris and Laurie were each other’s true love, and the parents everyone wanted to emulate. They had the kind of relationship that seemed to grow stronger in tough times. Chris put a chocolate on his Laurie’s pillow every night before they went to bed.

Chris always had a way with kids. He could coax a toddler out of a tantrum in seconds or get a grumpy preteen laughing. He was the king of nicknames. “I can’t remember him ever calling me by my actual name,” says daughter Lise, aka Bubba. He was a master bedtime story teller, with a knack for switching from captivating to boring at the precise moment when it became possible for the child to drift off to sleep.

Chris’s nieces and nephews gave him the coveted title of “The Funcle” – a combination of “fun” and “uncle” – despite stiff competition from his brothers and brothers-in-law. He liked to surprise the gang by showing up unexpectedly at the Kehoe family cottage in Quinnville, Qc. He did it every summer for so many years that the “surprise” became a running joke. He initiated many family traditions, such as the “Burning of the Silly Hats” at the end of the cottage vacation and he was a respected judge of the cupcake-decorating contest. He pushed for a Lalonde family reunion last summer in Penetang, and despite his failing health, managed to get on stage and bring the house down with his Father Guido Sarducci routine. He was the host and trivia quiz master on our weekly family Zooms, which he set up at the start of the pandemic; a tradition that continued until the Wednesday before he died.

Chris had many passions. He loved playing pool at the UVic faculty club, watching Jeopardy and sports events on TV, especially the Toronto Blue Jays and the Vancouver Canucks. He loved gibberish words, and would yell “zink, zank, zoinkage!” at the television after a good goal and quote Jabberwocky each year in birthday wishes to his son Riley, aka his Barlish Boy. He could quote extensively from Monty Python movies and The Big Lebowski. He loved card games and taught us all tips for Euchre that could apply to life if you think about them hard enough: “Don’t send a boy to do a man’s job”, “Turn down a bower, lose for an hour”, and “Eventually, some asshole always makes it clubs”.

He loved technology, and was generous with his time and expertise in both his professional and personal circles. He loved talking (and talking and talking) about vaping, because it helped him quit smoking. Any time he did some minor task around the house (changing a light bulb, emptying the dishwasher, etc.) he would say, “Put it in the Big Book of Home Handyman Triumphs.” He regaled his mother’s side of the family with tales of his oft-failed “home handyman triumphs” in the annual family newsletter.

Chris was not a foodie, by any stretch. When left to his own devices, he would happily live on grilled-cheese sandwiches, barbecued peanuts and beer. He was not a cook, but would clean up after meals, although you had to guard your plate to keep him from snatching it before you were done.

Chris was not kind to his body. He ate poorly (see above), smoked for decades, drank too much and aside from a few years in a friendly softball league in Vancouver, eschewed all exercise, including walking, or “trudging” as he called it. He was, however, exceedingly kind to other people…his students, his colleagues, his friends and his extended family. He and Laurie offered a bed to any relative who needed it, and for as long as they needed it.

The great tragedy in Chris’s life was the death by suicide of his eldest son, Peter, in December of 2014. Chris didn’t speak often of his grief, though when he did, it was usually to help others try to make sense of suicide or cope with their own grief.

“I know (the triggers for grief) will diminish with time, with the help of my better memories of Pete and his life, and with support from friends and family,” he wrote in an article for a mental health website. “But for now, they are many, and they might surface at any time. I acknowledge them, but I continue to invite in so many better memories of Pete to balance them out. There will be better, easier days, I tell myself—just not today, not right now.”

Music was a great solace to Chris, and he would share a playlist of what he called his “cryin’ songs” with grieving friends and relatives. The list included Willie Nelson’s “Something You Get Through”, Loudon Wainwright III’s “Missing You” and “I’m Not Gonna Cry”.

But it was John Prine who provided the soundtrack to Chris’s life: Prine’s happy songs, funny songs and sad songs were on heavy rotation in his household, all day, every day.

Chris inherited his father’s melodious singing voice (though thankfully, not Jerome’s sense of rhythm), and grew up singing “Sam Stone” and “Angel from Montgomery” and all the Prine favourites around Georgian Bay campfires. He and Laurie could sing a rendition of In Spite of Ourselves that would make us all feel like we’d ended up sittin’ on a rainbow, in spite of ourselves.

Here’s a good one to end on. It’s not hard to imagine our Chris – aka The Pro, Mondo, Good Chris, Dad, The Funcle, Dr. Lalonde, Pépère – singing this with gusto:

“When I get to heaven, I’m gonna shake God’s hand. Thank him for more blessings than one man can stand. Then I’m gonna get a guitar and start a rock n roll band. Check into a swell hotel. Ain’t the afterlife grand? And then I’m gonna get a cocktail; vodka and ginger ale. Yeah, I’m gonna smoke a cigarette that’s nine miles long. I’m gonna kiss that pretty girl on the tilt-a-whirl, ’cause this old man is goin’ to town.”

Chris is survived by his wife Laurie Chesworth, his son Riley and his wife Kelsey, grandson Lukas, and daughter Lise and her fiancé Jordan Bell. Chris was predeceased by his first-born son Peter, and his parents Jerome and Theresa Lalonde. He leaves in mourning his siblings: Ken, Lisa, Michelle and Doug Lalonde; in-laws Michelle and John Woulfe, André Picard, Tasha Menary, Peter and Anne Chesworth, Linda and Jim Nolan; and his nieces and nephews Kelsey, Patrick, Zoé, Molly, Michael, Kieran, Emmet, Natalie, Anaïs, Raphaëlle, and Maeve, as well as many beloved aunts, uncles, cousins and dear friends.