Just inside the distance
I hear the late September dogs
I understand their warning
I understand their call
Since you left, I feel a change in the air
Night after night
I'm searching for mercy
Everywhere

So I wake in the street
And I call out your name
And I shout to the sky
Come on

Come on let it rain
Let it rain down on me
Let the rain fill my eyes
Let the rain set me free
Let it rain down on me

Ten years ago, I woke up to a phonecall. "Come now," the nurse said. I did not make haste. I took the time to shower and dress. I remember what I wore. My old blue jeans - Calvin Klein - they fit me like they had been designed just for me. My beloved cowboy boots that would see me across America just a month later. And the white t-shirt my friend had brought me back from his last trip. To Washington. I wore a Washington DC t-shirt for two days while waiting for my father to die. Tonight, the irony does not escape me.

Lunchtime on September 26th found me in the staff breakroom on the palliative care floor of the small Jewish convalescent hospital in the West of Montreal. I sat there with a cold cup if tea in front of me, sweating yellow stains into my Washington shirt - stains that would never some out - and writing my father's obituary.

Predeceased by his beloved wife, he drank himself to death... no, that first draft would never do. I started over. Two rooms away, he continued with his labored breathing, and occasional anguished cries.

Eight o'clock the night of the 26th saw me sitting alone in his room, in the darkness, just staring. His brother had gone to a meeting - needed to be with the higher power. Bah. Wait a little longer, Billy, and the higher power would come to us. What was I supposed to do? Hold his hand? Talk to him? I was great with the nuts and bolts of dying: leave me to write the notices and sign the forms and bake the pies; holding hands was better done by someone else.

Five o'clock in the morning on the 27th saw me trying to grab a nap on an easy chair in the TV room, but 5:45 had me running down the hall at the behest of my cousin. Six-o-four I was an orphan. Six twenty-six it was official. I became an adult in that t-shirt. I don't think I will replace it. Some things can never be replaced.

Ther is a killer on the loose, you know. If you define yourself as a mother, it takes your womb. If you define youself as a woman, it steals your breasts. If you take pleasure in drinking or smoking, it destroys your liver or your lungs.

And if you are brilliant and kind and funny, it eats away at your brain.

It doesn't care that by killing you, it alters the lives of those around you. It doesn't care that I'll drive all day to get there. It doesn't care that I can't stop it.

It doesn't care that I've learned to hold the hands of those it ravages. It might not care, but I do. And that's why I'm going.