It’s hard to believe such a vital presence is no longer here, but it’s true; the inimitable Lani Ashenhurst died on Monday December 8. She was in hospital, her brother Jim, sister-in-law Lila, niece Corinn, and nephew Rob by her side; she’d refused treatment for her various ailments, saying, “I’m done.” The love of her life, Maurice, had died only a few weeks before. Lani did not want to go on without him.

As I wrote to my kids, who adored her and were cherished by her, “You can say a lot of people are ‘one of a kind,’ but no-one more so than Lani.” The stories of her eccentricities are legion. For many years, this woman lived on cigarettes, illicit drugs, and cheese. She hated all greens, considered ketchup her only vegetable. She was married three times, each lasting only a couple of months or even weeks, until she found Maurice, the perfect partner — quiet, kind, tolerant, and as totally eccentric as Lan. What a pair they were, for nearly three decades.

I arrived in Vancouver in 1975, an actress looking for work and knowing no one. One night after my first show there, a small red-headed person came up to me, took me to the Arts Club bar (where I subsequently lived on and off for the next five years) and told me she’d acquired a LIP grant, was looking for actors, and had chosen me. Believe it or not, the government had given her money to hire a troupe to tour the interior of B.C. Mesmerised by her energy, I signed on, along with four male actors. We cobbled a play together ourselves; it included a skit of all of us wearing cardboard boxes painted as cars, and Lan and me doing the hilarious Helena/Hermia fight scene from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which worked well because Helena is tall, like me, and Hermia is short, like Lani. The two are fighting over their boyfriends standing nearby.

HERMIA
“Puppet”? Why so? Ay, that way goes the game.
Now I perceive that she hath made compare
Between our statures; she hath urged her height,
And with her personage, her tall personage,
Her height, forsooth, she hath prevailed with him.
And are you grown so high in his esteem
Because I am so dwarfish and so low?
How low am I, thou painted maypole? Speak!
How low am I? I am not yet so low
But that my nails can reach unto thine eyes.

HELENA
I pray you, though you mock me, gentlemen,
Let her not strike me. You perhaps may think,
Because she is something lower than myself,
That I can match her.

HERMIA
“Lower”? Hark, again!

HELENA
O, when she is angry, she is keen and shrewd.
She was a vixen when she went to school,
And though she be but little, she is fierce.

HERMIA
“Little” again? Nothing but “low” and “little”?
Why will you suffer her to flout me thus?
Let me come to her…

I can still hear Lani growling, “How low am I, thou painted maypole?!” The scene was a joy, and the tour was the beginning of one of the dearest and most important friendships of my life. During that tour, when the big red bus we were travelling in arrived at our next destination, Lan would get out deckchairs and mix us martinis, and we’d sip and watch while the men argued about where to set up the stage.

She got another grant and founded ACME Theatre, an assembly of lunatics. Our greatest hit was El Grande de Coca Cola, about a poor Central American circus troupe. On opening night, Lani and I entered wearing giant fruity headdresses, I in platform heels towering above her. We milked the moment for all it was worth. The audience went wild.

When she wasn’t acting, Lani did temp work. At one point she was a receptionist in a big office and wanted to practice her tap dancing. The boss had a plexiglass carpet protector under his desk, so when he went out for lunch, she pushed off his desk and tap danced all lunch hour until he returned. She later travelled with a carnival to central America and even later, because she was so small and light, tried training to become a jockey. After her move back to Ontario, she worked as an assistant and bodyguard to the brilliant Martha Henry, and as a side gig, did income taxes for many actors.

There were bad times, when bad things happened to her. Her gentle older sister Charley died young, which devastated her. But Lani’s spirit was indomitable. She was the best, most caring friend a person could have — sometimes almost too caring, because she had a stern opinion about everything, which she felt free to express. And as she grew older, she was — well, the only word is crabby. Easily irritated, shall we say. But she was so honest and caring abou everybody, and about the world, nobody minded. She had the biggest heart.

The villains of this story are the tobacco companies. She and Mau both chain-smoked and could not quit, until Mau was hit with throat cancer and Lan with COPD. He had invasive operations and radiation on his throat, with the most ferocious of advocates making sure he had the best care, and then she had to push an oxygen tank around. She effected their final move to the town of Ingersoll, to a house situated above a park with lots of space for Maurice’s vast collection of tools and projects, which took up a room in the house and occupied the entirety of the garage. For years, his cancer was in remission; Lan’s lungs seemed okay. Always a dog lover and owner, she adopted Mr. Hapi, a three-legged dog from overseas, and found volunteer jobs. When my son got a dog, she was full of long-distance advice and became a generous best friend to him, and to my daughter. When we visited with my young grandsons, Maurice taught them how to whistle using the top of an acorn, and Lani fed them cheese.

Good years.

But Mau’s cancer came back, and Lani’s lungs deteriorated. I visited them in September, bringing a carefully ordered lunch WITH NO VEGETABLES, and found my always-active friend bent over trying to breathe. Mau was his usual sweet self, although he could no longer eat by mouth. It was a tragedy but not a surprise when he died in November, and Lani a month later.

I mourn them both, but especially my friend of nearly fifty years, a rare soul in this troubled world, a woman so original, open-hearted, independent, and unabashedly herself who gave in to nothing and nobody. Thank you for everything, Lani Ashenhurst, but most of all for being yourself. We love you and will miss you always.

As the bard said, “Though she was but little, she was fierce.”

Below: Lani with Mr. Hapi in September; two shots from El Grande, Lan as the tap-dancing page in The Club, and a few shots from my scrapbook of our wild and crazy tour of the Kootenays in 1975. Lo these many years.