(LifeSiteNews) — For more than four decades, Jim Hughes stood as the unwavering heart of Canada’s pro-life movement until his death on Monday. I was privileged to have known and worked with him for three of those decades.

When I first came to Campaign Life Coalition, he thought I was a spy for Planned Parenthood until I convinced him that my Dad was Henry Westen, a Campaign Life supporter. But that is a story for another time.

From his first involvement with Campaign Life Coalition in October 1978 until long after he stepped down as national president in September 2018, Jim gave his life so that others might live. A successful Toronto businessman at 35, he saw the gruesome reality of abortion at a right-to-life presentation at the Canadian National Exhibition in 1978. That moment changed him forever. He accepted his wife Ginny’s challenge to give “just two years” to the cause. He left his lucrative career and worked full time without a salary in the beginning while the couple lived on Ginny’s income as a registered nurse.

READ: Jim Hughes, longtime pro-life leader in Canada, dies

In 1984, he became national president of Campaign Life Coalition, a position he held for 34 years. Under his leadership, CLC became the powerhouse of Canadian pro-life activism. He founded The Interim newspaper in 1983. He served on the founding board of LifeSiteNews when it launched in 1997. He built the annual National March for Life in Ottawa into a major national event and helped bring the Life Chain and 40 Days for Life to Canada. He played key roles in establishing or advancing Aid to Women, Real Women of Canada, Catholic Insight magazine, the Parliamentary Pro-Life Caucus, Show the Truth campaigns, and the early Family Coalition Party. He also worked closely with Priests for Life Canada, Silent No More Canada, and the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition.

As everyone in the movement knows, Jim often joked that you only retire from this calling being carried out “feet first.” And that’s exactly how he lived — never truly retiring, always in the fight until the Lord called him home.

Jim was a man of deep personal faith and tender kindness. He once spoke with me about hearing the voice of the Lord speaking to him. Every year on his own birthday, he sent flowers to his mother, thanking her for the gift of giving him birth. At pro-life conferences, he was known for playfully “reverse mugging” children — slipping them money on the sly with a wink and a smile. He always loved joking and was faithful to friends in need. He had an uncanny ability to remember everyone else’s name and keep up with them.

Jim never sought a name for himself. Just a day before he died, I was listening to the powerful message of the song Only Jesus by Casting Crowns: “I don’t want to leave a legacy / I don’t care if they remember me / Only Jesus.” I fondly think of Jim this way. For him, I’d say he’d prefer we know that “Jesus is the only name to remember.”

Let us all pray for the repose of the soul of this great Canadian. Jim spent his life defending the unborn and the vulnerable, and Our Lord promises that whatever you did to the least of My brethren, you did to Me. May he rest in eternal peace.