September 27, 1949 - August 10, 2022
Remembering Diddy Evans
Diddy led a purpose-filled and joyous life, beautifully balancing tireless labour and generous celebration--caring for others, striving to understand the world, and working to cultivate the good things that lend dignity to our shared experience.
She was driven by care for her family, friends, and the greater community—ever and always working to make our days, our practical prospects, and our outlook on the lives before us brighter and more happily productive.
She was driven by curiosity about the world, in all its dazzling diversity and abundance—traveling through England, France, and Switzerland during her university years, and more recently through India, Japan, Laos, Cambodia, and China, as well as across Canada, and on kayaking tours of Haida Gwaii and the Gulf Coast Islands.
She was driven by a deep personal need to understand the world around her and to work, where required, towards positive change—researching painstakingly each and every day and writing letter after letter to elected representatives, encouraging them to serve the interests of regular working people and not only those of the profiteering captains of corporate piracy.
Diddy led a full and beautiful life made bright by love. She was at home and happy in the garden, preparing the soil, planting and weeding the beds, tending the new shoots. As in her garden, so too in the rest of life, Diddy worked happily and productively, and we are grateful for the abundant gifts we have received through her patient and care-filled labours.
Griselda Jane was born in Vancouver, B.C., on September 27th, 1949 to Wilford and Griselda Evans. Diddy was the eldest of four children and she is survived by her two sisters Katy and Claudia and her brother James. For fourteen years, beginning in January 1973, Diddy was married to Gordon Cockle with whom she had two sons, Matthew and Michael. Many will remember Diddy from the classroom—beginning her career in a one room schoolhouse on Douglas Lake Cattle Co. Ranch, she went on to teach in Merritt, Quebec City, Westbank, Kelowna, and finally in Peachland. Many more will know her from her volunteering, from her work in the Summerland community, and from animated garden-side chats between planting and weeding sessions. Diddy is predeceased by her youngest son, Michael Jordan Evans Cockle and she is remembered, with love and admiration, by her eldest son, Matthew together with her sisters, her brother, her extended family, and her many and dearly cherished friends.
A celebration of Diddy's life will be held Saturday, September 17t.h.