condolence cake

This strong man, who’d rarely been sick a day in his life, slowly but surely lost his independence as his body failed him, leading Baba to assume the role of caregiver, at a cost to her own physical and mental wellbeing. As my Gigi’s health deteriorated, he moved between their home and the local hospital, avoiding admittance to a nursing home due to Baba’s care. We were routinely warned that he wouldn’t return home each time an ambulance transported him to the hospital. And yet, he always managed to make it back, until of course he didn’t. While his death wasn’t surprising, it still rocked my small 12-year-old world. And all I recall is this cake, sitting on the table. Its aroma seeping through the edges of the cling wrap. Full disclaimer: I never ate this cake as a kid. It was too spicy; it had too many carrots; it seemed too healthy. I always found an excuse to justify why I didn’t want it on my plate, but perhaps the context more than the cake itself made my mind up for me.

This first lesson in aging, vulnerability, and death remained unsettling to me until 2011, when I was diagnosed with an auto-immune disease that tried very hard to kill me. I’ll never forget turning 33, and what it felt like to face the fact that my own body, which had always been so strong, so athletic, and so healthy, was failing me. Modern medicine was also letting me down, given that doctors were unable to quickly diagnose me and then when they did, it was nearly too late to put me back together. Luckily, like Gigi, I married a natural caregiver. My husband Rob spent the next two years driving me to appointments, waiting for bloodwork, and taking me to treatments, caring for me at home and within the hospital. I lost my independence overnight and my world grew smaller, just as I imagine Gigi’s did when he fell ill.

Rob tried his very best to keep me safe, but I contracted c-difficile during my first and only hospital stay, which complicated those early terrifying days. It could have been avoided had cleaning staff not been cut due to austerity measures, and if the emergency room, where I was admitted, and the hospital room in which I stayed for nearly a month, had been built to accommodate one person and not a couple. I haven’t stopped thinking about germs since. We soon learned to advocate for better care, question my medical team, and carry Lysol wipes wherever we went. Without a devoted caregiver by my side, I don’t know if my recovery would have been as successful. I have no doubt that Baba added years to Gigi’s life, and Rob’s care likely did the same to mine.

This past spring, I watched in horror as COVID-19 spread like wildfire through Canada’s nursing homes. The CBC reports that five of these facilities lost more than 40% of its residents at the height of the first wave of this pandemic, and four of them happen to be located in the Montreal area where I live. As soon as these places closed their doors to caregivers and family members, the situation deteriorated rapidly, leading to many deaths from starvation and dehydration, not from the virus itself. We also know that containing the virus in these dated facilities, where residents share rooms with anywhere from two to five others, was nearly impossible. A shortage of PPE meant that we literally led our elders to slaughter, watching and hoping that the situation would improve but fully knowing that the loss of life would be great. And it was. Many hospitals fared better, given the massive amounts of spending that have gone into building new infrastructure and renovating older facilities over the last ten years, but too many people still fell ill. I am devastated for all of the caregivers and family members who had to sit idly by and watch this horrific situation play out in slow motion.

In the weeks leading up to quarantine, as I watched COVID-19 make its way from Wuhan through Italy and then to us here in Canada, I baked Baba’s carrot cake often. I was not yet mourning anything per se, but I needed to be comforted through the food I ate. I sensed that the world would be shutting down for me yet again given that I remain immuno-compromised, but didn’t yet know what that would look like within my home and society at large. I’m happy to report that this cake is delicious and perfectly suited to the anxious times in which we are living. It nourishes the body and soul and should not be reserved just for funerals.

While I offer this cake with Baba’s sentiment in mind, as a condolence to all who have lost loved ones during this pandemic, I also offer it in solidarity. The time has come to fight for better and recognize that austerity cuts, which have continued unabated for years, harm our most vulnerable and marginalized community members. The systems we have in place should not collapse in the absence of caregivers’ and family members’ paid and unpaid labour. Now is not the time to mourn for the society to which we’ll never be able to return. Moving forward in this brave new world demands that we prioritize the weakest among us. This starts with wearing masks and it ends with tearing down the systems that have never met all of our needs equally. Our social safety net, within and beyond healthcare, has never been more important.

Navigating this path requires us to listen to those who need us the most. I became an oral historian because I believe in the power of story and its ability to improve the world in which we live. In fact, my body only started to heal once I found doctors and nurses who were prepared to listen to my needs and actively respond to them. The images of seniors waving to their loved ones from behind glass, within the buildings that were supposed to protect them, will forever remain engrained in my mind, a deeply troubling reminder of the ways we failed to listen to those who required us to demand better. We cannot make the world more just until we listen to their stories and act on the lessons they offer.

I don’t know what the future looks like. None of us do. But as someone who has struggled to move forward while redefining and confronting new normals, I can tell you that our ability to succeed is tied to a recognition of the past and the insights it offers us in the present moment. I hope that as you sit and ponder our future while eating this cake, you remain hopeful of the change that is within our reach and the infinite ways that you can play a role in making our society more inclusive. If we don’t actively listen to those who need us the most, who will? The silence will continue to be deafening, coronavirus or not, and the society that emerges will not be worth living in. We can and must do better.

*I dedicate this post to my nurses, Andrea Olney and France Bouchard, the late Dr. Arthur Rosenberg, and Dr. Gad Friedman, who took the time to listen in the name of healing, and still do. And to Rob Douglas, for everything.