It's hard to create a community based on love and compassion in the middle of a society based on greed and fear. The hippies tried it without much success even in the backwoods. We tried it in the women's movement but even in all-women groups, the training we received in a patriarchal society restricted our ability to achieve it. The Occupy camps are the closest I've seen to that beloved community that has so escaped our grasp.

"I've seen the glass ceiling and it's made out of golf balls," Nancy Riche told a women's conference of the Canadian Labour Congress in the 1990s when she was secretary-treasurer.

That combination of wry Newfoundland humour and telling it like it is was Nancy's trademark. She was a fierce fighter for women and for workers. She stood up against all odds to become a major figure in Canada's labour movement. Nancy died on Saturday in Newfoundland, her home. In typical Nancy fashion, she volunteered to do phoning for the NDP during the Newfoundland election from her hospital bed.

Almost everyone I've talked to since what seemed like the sudden announcement of Jack Layton's death had the same experience that I did. It hit me harder than I expected. I've lost other comrades, many closer than Jack was to my politics and my practice but his death hit me harder. I've been thinking about why.

Maybe it was because we all believed with him that he could beat the cancer. And it seemed so cruel that just at the moment of his greatest triumph, it took his life. Such an archetypal tragedy. It might have left us in despair except for his amazing open letter to us.