Last week I gave you the first half of my top-10 list of positive things that have emerged from COVID for me.  I hope it gave you a chance to contemplate the good things you’ve gained from this great slowdown.  

Here’s the back half of that list.  

5. Airplane travel is out / at-home tourism in

It feels like when I went away to law school for three years in the early 2000s: coming back to Toronto was a discovery mission. I drove around marvelling:

“Wow, a whole new tourist area called ‘the Distillery.” 

“You want me to go where?  The Gladstone? Isn’t that a fallen down hotel?”

It was fun to witness three years of urban evolution at revolutionary speed.

And that is how I feel about emerging slowly from Restin’ in Weston the last two + years.  

Not long ago, and for the first time since - well - at least pre-March 2020, I went east of the Don Valley to visit a friend. Tourists would have moved faster and with more attention to the road as I did driving down the Danforth: new condos have sprouted in parking lots, much-needed bike-lanes now flank the car lanes, restaurants have come and gone.   

The following night, feeling even braver, I drove my car to the aforementioned Distillery, now a tourist Mecca but also a gathering place for Torontonians for shopping, theatre, and - in my case - good food and outdoor cinema. It was a Saturday evening, and while the food at Cluny Bistro and company were magnificent, the cinematic experience of the Inclucity Festival pleasant (although the film was shite), everything else to do with the experience was unpleasant:  parking, traffic, and did you know they took down a large part off Gardiner Expressway? My enviro-self is saying “yes!” But my practical self is saying WTF?  How are we supposed to get anywhere? 

The good news is I’ve seen a chunk of the world and I’m content to stay in the Toronto area, at least for now.  

4. I’m a tech wizard!

Not actually but I’m a whole lot more confident with technology than I was on March 13, 2020. As we “pivoted” to working from home, I panicked - how the hell am I to set up a home office? I was the person who, even on a weekend, would sooner trek downtown over having something workable at home. 

The pandemic changed all that. I set up a laptop, monitor, dongles (a word I didn’t know before)  VPN and so on + had a bunch of new web-based things to master. The first few Zoom meetings I attended, I dialled in by phone, afraid to click the Zoom link in case I wasn’t sure what to do next. I stopped this practice when I got some killer phone bills because I’d called some long distance numbers. 

I eventually got my own Zoom account, bought Zoom for dummies (entirely unnecessary but gave me a sense of comfort), and started setting up polls, running breakout rooms, chatting, and reacting with the best of them.  

My home office, eventually set up properly by a tech-friend, could not be more comfortable. I rely on some remote support from time to time, but I’m proud of the level of skill I’ve developed.

3. Shedding stuff

During 2020, I was in acquisition mode, trudging around Weston benefitting from the great basement purge everyone else was engaged in. I acquired a stone garden table, plant pots, a closet organizer, a ladder-style bookcase, and many discarded books. 

Summer 2021, a switch flipped, reversing the process. I culled my sizable collection of bags and shoes. I shed dishes I’d acquired during 10 years here. I parted with candle sticks I’d had since the 80s. I even put stuff out I’d picked up in 2020. In those early months, it was all from my front yard, free for the taking. Then in October last year, I learned about Facebook Marketplace. Since then, I’ve turned countless items into over $6000 cash. Sure, I’d spent much, much more on those items over the years. But it’s felt good to get things out of storage and into hands that will hopefully use them.  

More importantly, it lays the groundwork for me to move to my dream new home - a 550 square foot conversion of my garage into a laneway suite, for which I’m currently awaiting a building permit. I have all my ducks in a row to have completed by (fingers crossed) December of this year!  Stay tuned to this space - when I get the permit, I will do the big reveal of the plans! 

2. MAIDvocacy

“Lucky” is not a word you’d usually use when your partner has died but if those are the facts, then you make the best of them. I know Jack was proud of his choice to die with medical assistance and his kids haven’t seemed bothered by me “going public.” I have been lucky to  have speaking and writing opportunities through my legal work to tell the intensely personal story. The legislation allowing it was only two years old at the time of Jack’s death and only about 8000 Canadians had chosen MAID. If there were more MAID widows who were also lawyers, I’m not aware of any.  I told the story of the link between the development of MAID laws and Jack’s illness in a series for rabble.ca that won a Canadian Online Publishing Award (COPA) in January 2020. 

As the media became more comfortable with the idea that people in some circumstances should have agency over their deaths, they were looking for people with first-hand experience to humanize what was primarily a legal and medical story.  I did a street interview just before the pandemic and then appeared on a Zoomer Panel by video with some heavy hitters in the field, both linked here.

But during the pandemic, and perhaps because the world had to be more creative in advancing issues, the Internet has taken off with opportunities for me to connect to the MAID world. I’ve attended webinars put on by MAIDHouse, Dying with Dignity, and CAMAP, and have participated in a research study where I created a digital story, “Losing my Magnetic Pole,” documenting my relationship with Jack and his MAID death. That led to me doing a couple of Six Minute Memoir presentations, one which was on MAID.  You can see all my videos on my website here. 

Through all of this, I’ve met some other Canadian MAID widows, one of whom has dubbed us “MAIDvocates,” a label I wear proudly.  I’ve always had causes important to me - food security, the environment, women’s rights, housing - but none where I’ve felt I could actually make a difference.  Making people aware of MAID along with the benefits and weaknesses of the law and how it feels to go through the process - these are all things where my voice can help. I’m grateful for the pandemic providing the time to explore my role and feel part of a community. 

1. Writing

Buoyed by the COPA award in early 2020, and knowing my time with Jack, including his death, was a helluva story, I sat down in August 2020 to write an outline of a book about my experience as his caregiver, wife, and MAID facilitator.  Three months later I woke up to the fact my outline had turned into a 50,000 word manuscript.  

Then I started taking online writing courses - first Megan Devine’s Writing your Grief course. That turned into Alison Wearing’s Memoir Writing Ink, and from an alumni course of Alison’s course emerged a monthly writing group. We’re six women - now friends -  spread across North America all telling personal stories in what we hope is an engaging and creative way.  Last summer I did a blog-writing course with Kerry Clare, and of course then there’s the Six Minute Memoir, oral story-telling course I did with Anne Bokma. 

And I write every day.  Whether it’s this blog or for contest entries, and whether it’s only 10 minutes after breakfast or after my work day in my gazebo with a glass of wine and some chips, I am hammering thoughts and feelings out on my MacBook.  When the time is right, I’ll get back to the manuscript - now about 85,000 words - but for now, I’m content to use writing to work through the complexities of COVID, widowhood, MAID, caregiving, the effects of growing up in a quirky family, and all points between.

No surprise, I’m sure, that the very best thing that has happened to me since March 2020 is discovering writing.

Please do take a moment to reflect on what space COVID has created for you to make a difference to the way you’ve lived.  And please consider sharing your experience in the comments section below. I’d love to know what you’ve been up to!

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