Murder victim Chris Bond was remembered Thursday with a level of warmth and respect not always shown to him while living on the streets of Sarnia.
About 60 people gathered at Nightlight, a downtown drop-in centre, to share stories of Bond's ability to adapt to living rough, to coping with painful trench foot and maintaining his quick wit despite addiction and mental illness.
Nightlight was one place where Bond frequently sought support and friendship until just days before Feb. 21 when police found him dead in a southend apartment.
"He had a great heart and a concern for people even more vulnerable than himself," said Murray Stephenson, co-executive director of Nightlight with his wife Gwen.
"In his struggle for life, he was a valiant warrior," Stephenson said. "He was just trying to survive."
Bond, who sometimes introduced himself as Chris, sometimes as Mike, and sometimes used the street name Christmas, was known by many as honest and sincere.
"He was a very moral character and told me about growing up Catholic," said Cathy Butler, a Nightlight volunteer. Bond was one of the first to use the drop-in when it opened two years ago, she said.
"I will remember him with a big smile on his face. He seemed so comfortable with life on the street. He did it well. He always had a plan and was organized."
He was also a packrat and hid bags of his belongings throughout the downtown. He travelled with even more bags and usually a shopping cart or a wagon, sleeping in doorways, stretched out on the sidewalk or under an outdoor roof at the Kenwick building.
Downtown was his stomping grounds and no one at the celebration of his life had any idea how long he lived that way.
Jim Canie, a Point Edward graphic designer, befriended Bond last fall and said he tried to help him.
"I met him while he was lying on the cement outside the Bank of Montreal on Exmouth Street," said Canie, one of several speakers on Thursday.
He noticed Bond was wearing a trademan's cap and that helped convince Canie to agree when Bond asked for a ride.
"He had, like, six grocery bags and a loaded cart that I put in my van with him. He asked to go get his phone that was charging at Telus. Then he asked to go to city hall where he said he was sleeping. By that time, I thought someone needs to help this guy." And their friendship began.
Canie often responded, as did Murray Stephenson at Nightlight, to Bond's requests for rides, trips to the hospital or to a shelter.
He frequently was banned from local shelters because of his drug use and possibly because he could become aggressive, Stephenson said.
"My goal was to get him out of Sarnia because he was always getting beat up and bullied," Canie said. "The drug environment here was not good.
"He was only 120 pounds and never backed down from a fight. I always told him he'd die on the street if he didn't leave town."
The last time he saw Bond was a cold night about a week before his death.
That night, Canie said he got a call from Bond who was at Nightlight and wanted a ride to a shelter. They drove from shelter to shelter, but Bond was not allowed in any of them.
"He had nowhere to go so he asked me to drop him downtown where he said he would sleep in a heated hallway he knew about. I left him a wool hat for his head and two extra for his feet.
"And when I left, he said God bless. He always said God bless," said Canie.
"(Chris) was a conundrum," said Butler. "He could be challenging but he was very smart too, and he knew a lot of people.
"I am very sad, it's grievous, that he was murdered."
At one time, Bond was a boilermaker and worked for a Chatham-based company for 21 years. He owned a house on Conrad Street but lost it when the bank foreclosed.
No one at Nightlight knew how he ended up homeless. He didn't talk about that.
When Bond was murdered, the Stephensons connected with his only child, Ashlea Burrows, who lives in London. He also had four sisters.
Borrows couldn't make it to the celebration of her father's life but wrote a short tribute that was read by Gwen Stephenson.
"Chris has been estranged from myself and his sisters for many years," she wrote. "Although he was never an active part of my life, the time we did get to spend together has profoundly shaped who I am today, and I certainly would not change that."
She went on to thank Nightlight and its volunteers for extending kindness to her father despite his addiction and mental health.
"Thank you for seeing the person that was still present and providing the community relationships and support required to shine light into the darkness," wrote Burrows.
A 40-year-old man who lived in the apartment where Bond's body was found, was arrested two days later and charged with first-degree murder and committing an indignity to a body.