Leon CHERNIAK

LEON CHERNIAK Everybody dies, but not everybody lives. Well, Leon Cherniak lived, and he lived large. He was a youthful, charming, and incredibly good-looking jovial man. He lived on his own terms, with the kind of courage that most people aspire to but never achieve. He was born and raised in Toronto, but had the opportunity to travel all over the world with his friends and family. Paris, Malta, and The Bahamas were some of his favorite places to visit. He was the first of his friend group to find his footing in business, first to get married, first to have children, first to get divorced, and unfortunately the first to pass away. After finding some business success very early in life, and having four beautiful, talented and gifted children, he went through a difficult period and learned the hard way that the only thing that mattered to him was being there for his children. Even if he wasn't an expert on everything his children were interested in, he inspired tremendous self-confidence in them and set them on the path to be world class at whatever they pursued. He was always the "cool dad" and a mentor to many of his younger friends and family members, in particular when it came to fatherhood. Uncommon for men of his generation, he leaned in fully to being a loving father. It's hard to quantify what that means, but the way his four children, their partners, and his grandchildren came together in the last few months of his life was a testament to his love and unlike anything you have ever seen in your life. He had a passion for food, and wine, and one of the most wonderful things was seeing him turn that passion into stages at renowned fine dining establishments around the world after his children had grown up, cooking with top chefs like Daniel Boulud, and Jason Cox of Opus. He stayed active in competitive sports throughout his life, always practicing as hard as he would for the real thing. The peak of his athletic career was playing waterpolo for U of T - he could have gone to the Olympics if he tried a little harder he said - but he also loved swimming, and adventuring around new cities across the globe. One of his most recent adventures was hiking over 400 kilometers of the Portuguese Camino trail. He was surprised to discover afterwards that he had accomplished such an arduous journey full of cancer. He was complicated, he was human, and he died far too young, but if anyone made it in this world, whatever that means, it was him and he did it on his own terms. He was 100% Leon until the very end. He is survived by his children, grandchildren, and the countless lives he's impacted. His presence was felt in any room he entered; he was truly a force of nature. Life can be incredibly fragile, but the love he has put out into the world will never fade away. Just as the epitaph on his father's gravestone reads: "The lion lives on." A graveside service will be held on Wednesday, January 4, 2023 at 2:00 p.m., Mt. Pleasant Cemetery, 375 Mt. Pleasant Road, Toronto. For shiva information please see www.benjamins.ca