Write Call

I began writing a novel eight years ago following the death of my mother. She was ninety-four and had been living in a seniors’ residence in Collingwood, Ontario, near where I live. My sister and I were doing our best to keep her out of long-term care with the help of the province’s home care service and an array of personal support workers from private agencies. Mum had recently had a mild stroke that affected her right side, and she was suffering from dementia. Even worse was a basal cell carcinoma on her face that, despite several major surgeries over the years, was now spreading at an alarming rate. Her doctor persuaded us to take her back to her surgeon at Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto for an assessment, which we did.

The news was terrible. A CAT scan showed the hideously disfiguring cancer had gone under the skin and into the bone. Surgery was out of the question. She was already refusing food, presumably because of the pain, although characteristically she...