I was also surprised at his age, I assumed he was in his late 20's at the most. I do remember feeling sorry for some of the staff, they were fresh out of school, and couldn't have been ready for the insanity of Ford's office.
Well, emotionally stunted just like his boss--and compounded by how, unlike his boss, he *didn't* have the comforting air cushion of a rich, enabling, and politically connected famiglia. From whatever received rudiments we have, pre-Ford Graeme might as well have been a drifter--and an *angry* drifter at that. Bitter, lost, many times burnt and probably often through self-inflicted circumstance. And the utter threadbare wretchedness of his death notice (compounded by its being in the Sun, *not* the Globe or the Star--and probably "as he would have wanted it") demonstrates as much--beyond the "Coast to Coast" part, what's his pre-Ford background? Any degrees, achievements, etc? Or did he always carry a chip-on-the-shoulder distrust of higher education or anything that spoke of "elite achievement"?
Above all, that "He was smart, funny, generous with whatever he had.
He was not a man of many possessions." part. Why single out the latter, especially? Are they trying to convey him as humble and selfless? For all we know, it might be euphemism for his spending his entire Toronto tenure, even under Ford's employ, couch-hopping or living in a rooming house with a hot plate and bare, hanging lightbulb--and not out of monkish austerity, but rather out of having previously (and still doing so?) foolishly blown his money on indulgences and pawned off whatever he had remaining. Ford's Toronto as his "destination of last resort", as it were.
Yeah, maybe we shouldn't be spending all these pages on Graeme. I agree there's an inevitable element of "karma" or "good riddance to bad rubbish" here. But, like it or not, he *is* the first literal casualty of (and from within) the Ford realm; and that's why this is one heck of a benchmark to dwell upon--not to mention that what I'm dwelling upon probably presages, as I've suggested, a Toronto Life-style feature article, something of that sort...