It’s the coldest day of the year and somewhere within, each one of us feels a premonition of mortality shudder our bones. The foyer of the Western Hospital has more homeless people than usual. Mostly men with jagged, unfashionable beards, they curl into the hospital’s available lounge chairs. Shapeless under their winter gear and salvaged miscellany, they appear to be melting—whatever had lived inside, now collapsed and unsupported. These people, so candid, they doze all around us.

A beautiful woman in a sundress,  her hair still wet from the morning shower, was trying to unlock a door. The sun was falling upon her, the wooden porch, the entire red brick face of the home. She didn’t have the right key and was struggling with the lock, with how her morning was assembling itself, and she tossed her head back in frustration. Tiny, almost imagined droplets of water were cast from her hair and caught in the sunlight, and everything seemed to stop for a moment. 

And then a raccoon, having slipped from night into day, emerged from behind a tree. With his detached animal knowingness he stared directly at us. Jones, astonished, squealed at the miracle, while the raccoon, keeping to the shadows, disappeared back into the night of some protective greenery. Up at the corner, at the mulberry tree and raspberry bushes,  so many berries had been crushed on the sidewalk that they looked like paintball splatters. There were berries hanging above us and growing from the earth beneath us, and it was like we’d passed into a different realm and were now moving through a fertile, green tunnel. As I was picking a raspberry for Jones, a woman sprinted by us toward the subway. Plugged into her iPhone, with a knapsack on her back and a briefcase in one hand, she was ready for the big meeting, ready to present the best version of herself to the world. She was moving fast, like an athlete who still retained her running form from college, days that had recently started to feel further and further away. 

An older man, immaculately dressed in wardrobe that looked from another century, ambled up the street coming to pass a college-aged woman wearing a bright yellow dress. Her face was still new, and she carried with her a pronounced, heaving limp that was mysterious and beautiful and sad, and when she smiled past us, there was the unexpected scent of clove cigarettes and skin cream. A butterfly then appeared and it was a sign. Perhaps a spirit guide, and Jones declared that we must follow it, and so we did– everything around us like still lingering dreams from the previous night, only now beginning to fade into the waking day.

As of this writing, I am on day 7 of a 6 week stint at a pulmonary rehabilitation facility.

Last night was an event known as “Coffee House.” It took place in a generic, over-lit cafeteria style room that was made all the more depressing by the tiny gestures of decorative cheer added by the well-intentioned staff.

An inspirational message taped to the wall.

A balloon tied to a folding chair.

Somewhere a Dollar Store streamer that wouldn’t stay in place, hanging limp as if injured.

All of us gathered there were quiet, standing around as awkward and vulnerable as children at a school dance. Those who were most profoundly ill, those for whom recovery was out of reach and who lived permanently in the residence, had been pushed up near a three-piece band that was getting ready to perform. These people sat in complicated, tongue-controlled wheelchairs, and at a casual glance appeared fused into the metal of their containers– their mouths open, faces rigid and untranslatable. The rest of us, those attached to oxygen tanks and those not, just looked lost and a little sad, like we’d long given up hope of being asked to dance. You felt what was missing rather than what was there—and it seemed as if in each breath we exhaled a shallow puff of loss, all then gathering together like a weather system to form a heavy, oppressive cloud that enveloped us.

It was heartbreaking.

The band, a kind of folk outfit that was comprised of a woman who looked like a community organizer on tambourine, a bongo player in a Toronto Blue Jays cap, and an electric keyboardist who tried to project energy by wearing a Hawaiian shirt, began to play. At first the music seemed like it was designed to be little more than sound, just a “something” to help fill the emptiness of the situation, but then the woman began to sing I’ll Fly Away. Her voice was beautiful and true, and everybody in the coffee house fell into it.

When the shadows of this life have gone

I’ll fly away

Like a bird from these prison walls I’ll fly

I’ll fly away

And that voice, that song, it seemed to come out of us, too. And for a few moments we were all living beyond our mortal cages, we were all soaring– everything effortless, everything weightless, everything beautiful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MNM0OO_iVI

This writing business isn’t working out for me. I type slowly, my grammar is atrocious, I’m getting dimmer and more confused as I age, and of course, there’s no money to be made. The best thing for me, instead of just growing more bitter, unsuccessful and out of touch, is to simply step away from the industry as gracefully as possible and throw my passions into something else.

I’m going to become a doula.

As fate would have it, some good friends of mine are expecting a baby in about six months, and one night over dinner they commented that I have a knack for always making those around me feel really comfortable and at ease and that they hoped they could get a doula that was as good at that as me. Right then and there I volunteered to be their doula and they jumped at the chance.

In preparation for my new role, in which it will be my job to assist Tina before, during, or after childbirth, as well as her partner Raoul, (by providing physical assistance, and emotional support), I have been studying online, reading various pamphlets and sending encouraging emails. What follows are some of the emails I have sent the expectant couple:

Tina:

I just wanted to check in, making sure that you were eating properly and getting all of the required nutrients. Remember, eggs and bone marrow make a great breakfast for mother’s-to-be!

You’re doing great and don’t worry about your new neck fat, the odd’s are in your favour that it’s not thyroid cancer!

Namaste,

Michael Murray, Doula

“IF I CAN DREAM IT, I CAN ACHIEVE IT.”

Tina:

You’re probably feeling pretty low now, but take solace in the fact that you were once beautiful and that many (some) men like big women. And in answer to your question, I have done quite a bit of research and the general consensus is that the pain associated with giving birth is really quite extreme. You’re going to make a great mother!! (Also, no, I do not know what doula means, but I will find out!!)

Namaste,

Michael Murray, Doula

“EVERYTHING HAS BEAUTY, BUT NOT EVERYONE CAN SEE.”

Tina:

STAY AWAY FROM GREEN TEA AT ALL COSTS!!!! IT COULD DAMAGE THE BABY’S DNA AND CREATE MUTATIONS IN THE CHILD!! (Hope it’s not too late!)

Namaste,

Michael Murray, Doula

“TRY TO BE LIKE THE TURTLE—COMFORTABLE IN YOUR OWN SHELL.”

Raoul:

As your family’s doula, it’s not just my job  to tend to the needs of your wife Tina, but to yours, too. I know this is a very stressful time for you, especially with you trying to build a rocking cradle before the baby is born, and you probably have a lot of questions about what your new life is going to be like, whether things in the bedroom with your wife will ever be the same (no) or if you’ll be exhausted all the time (yes). In order to ameliorate these anxieties, I am going to schedule one-on-one therapy sessions each week at The House of Lancaster in Parkdale (There are new, more generous rules on touching). Here, we will discuss matters of new parenting and hopefully take your mind off your worries. (The expense of these field trips will be embedded in my bill to you and Tina every two weeks.)

Namaste,

Michael Murray, Doula

“FALL SEVEN TIMES AND STAND UP EIGHT.”

I was left a little puzzled by it all, slightly dazzled, even. I understand how she had her arms full, particularly if she had aggressive dogs but still, it just seemed so presumptive and impersonal, like her life were an arrow around which the rest of the world– little more than white noise– must part.

I wondered if I might be like that, too. Recently, our dog, a Miniature Dachshund, had urgent back surgery. It’s a very expensive procedure, and the amount of money we spent on that could have been spent elsewhere. After all, there are people who can’t afford back surgery, who can’t afford AIDS medication or a place to live, but we chose to spend the money on our pet—a creature some might describe as a servant whose job is to love. Whether this was an ethical expenditure or not is something worth sitting down and thinking about, as we have, and whatever the arguments one might make, we were simply called to do so—it was an instinctive response to love.

I was rolling all of this over as we continued up the street, thinking about entitlements, privilege, exclusion and the monetary valuation of life, eventually coming across a homeless woman in front of the LCBO. She’s a woman I’m friendly with, and due to Heidi’s surgery we hadn’t been out in a few weeks, and this woman—to whom we could have given the money we spent on Heidi’s surgery– hadn’t seen us in quite a while. She was overjoyed to see us and it was as if she was some sort of saint placed there to address my doubts. She began to praise Heidi for her beauty and silky coat, telling me how happy it made whenever she saw us walking up the street. “It’s like a little beam of light shining into my day,” she said, “yes, aren’t you a little beam of light,” she continued, nuzzling her nose next to Heidi’s. And at that moment it began to snow, so soft and lovely, that it felt a blessing of the moment rather than an accident of nature.