Jack and I were no strangers to hospitals. They were the places we knew best other than my condo and our shared house. We arrived at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre for the first time together on January 20, 2016. Jack grabbed a quick smoke walking from the car park to the door. As he dropped it in the sewer grate he grinned, threw his arm around my waist and said:

“Hey, we’ve never been to this hospital before.”

When I went to bed that night, I was cold. Really fucking cold. It was a cool Nov 2 but more than that, my defences were down. Emotional fragility and exhaustion drove icicles right to my bones. I had also been spending most of my time with Jack in the basement where he had the heat cranked. The pilot light within him had already expired as he inched towards death.

In that chilly bed, despite fatigue I’d never experienced before, I struggled to sleep. I was wearing the beautiful pyjamas I’d bought in case Jack moved to a hospice. I wanted to be sure that if I stayed with him there, I would not embarrass myself, or more likely, Jack. He was fussy about that kind of thing. While he wouldn’t have cared what he looked like, he would have wanted me to look decent - clean, evenly trimmed nails, and so on. Funny the things he cared about. Still cared about.

If you know me - or follow this blog - you know my relationship with my husband began with a random chat while he fixed my fridge. Jack was the master of them. He had friends all over Toronto - and doubtless in his first home, Wrocław, Poland too - simply because he couldn’t not engage with people.

This is part of Jack’s legacy to me. Oh, I can’t lie - I’ve never exactly been a shy person. But with Jack as my model, I ramped up my random chattiness while I was with him and have carried it forward into my post-Jack life.

This is certainly true in Weston, where I started off as a dog-owner, a well-documented way to meet people. The club of canine companions is enormous and welcoming! Middle-aged bank presidents chat about pooh bags with social work students; a housecleaner who arrived in the ‘80s from Poland advises a newly arrived Syrian physics professor about the best off leash parks in Toronto. They have probably never discussed their professional lives. But Molly’s mom celebrates as much as Fido’s dad when Fido’s diarrhea is stopped with a little pumpkin puree. In my case, there are two tough-looking young men with fierce looking dogs who always exchange greetings with me even now, despite my doglessness.

I lay on the marble bench in the Shangri-La Hotel’s Miraj Hammam Spa on October 6, the day after Jack’s birthday. This steam room with its vaulted ceiling, marble benches, and tile walls was Jack’s pride and joy.* Some widows have a gravesite to visit to mark a spouse’s birthday; I can think of no place that more embodies Jack than this steam room.

Fixing up the basement shower stall with a steam boiler, nozzle, temperature gauge, and a cedar bench was Jack’s urgent priority when we moved into our first shared house. It pissed me off. I saw a dozen more pressing things to do to make our new house feel like home while Jack was busy converting the basement into his man-cave.

My TBR pile is something even three years of staying at home couldn’t kill. Indeed you might equate the stack of books beside my bed to a virus - it mutates but never seems to get any less aggressive.

Before I began my three year COVID hibernation, I’d accumulated a modest TBR collection. Mostly they were recently acquired novels, loaned/given me (actually, I must confirm which…) and the occasional find on the discount pile at Book City, one of Toronto’s few independent bookstore chains.

By October of 2016, it was time to celebrate the “many memorable moments” of the year. No kidding - many! There were the easy ones - Jack was turning 65, I was turning 50, and our October birthdays were three days apart. Then add on the fact we’d lived together for five years. Throw in a dog’s birthday - Bidi - also five. And then there was our elopement five months earlier. And the treatment - well, the 100 hours of chemo and the multiple rounds of radiation and the countless MRIs, CTs, and everything else - we had to celebrate the end of that, right?

I’m pretty sure Ben Gaum’s path would not have crossed mine but for the fact we’re both members of the growing community of lanewayers in Toronto. Because of that, we ended up on a panel together at the Homeshow in March, right around the time Ben was occupying his suite. But Ben’s a lanewayer in two ways: he has one of his own, and he’s building them for others.

Right from when we met in 2009, life with Jack was like a trip down the Niagara River. Sometimes we laughed loudly as we rushed through rapids; sometimes we tread water comfortably side-by-side in a deep pool; and sometimes we were thrust into the vortex of an eddy swirling so rapidly we thrashed about against the centrifugal force of the water and lashed out against each other. The common thread was we could never see the bottom. The experiences sometimes left me exhilarated but mostly anxious that we were going right over the Falls. I received no comfort from Jack who loved the very thing that freaked me out - the uncertainty. Indeed, he seemed happiest when he couldn’t anticipate what was coming next, and had lived his whole life like one of those barrel people from Niagara’s history. In contrast, for 43 years I’d controlled my own personal watercourse like a lock keeper on the Welland Canal.

When I ran into Franz Hartmann on the street in October 2021, he was excited when I shared the seeds of the plan I was germinating - to build a laneway suite, leave my legal practice, and achieve a simpler life.

Franz and his partner, Karen Craine, were part of my social circle when I first came to Toronto 30+ years ago. I was even at their commitment celebration at Bistro 999 when that address meant something! We’d drifted apart though as many do when they leave school despite following similar paths. We occasionally reconnected at things like the Toronto Environmental Alliance Ecobunk awards and NDP fundraisers. And, Karen was the long-time law clerk for our law firm competitors. But the excitement on that street-meeting in October 2021 was all about the present day - you see Franz and Karen were 90% done their own laneway suite!