A visit to my Sister and Father
I visited highland memory gardens cemetery and mausoleum on the 7th year of my father’s passing on September 4th 2026. It was a Friday afternoon and without a car for the very first time I was able to experience it in all its full beauty from beginning to end. The experience was particularly rich by foot, noticing things I never noticed before such as the experience too graceful Canadian geese fly above me. There were many on the ground but that had been my first time of experiencing them above me. In many ways it was exhilarating because I imagined them as my Sister and father flying above me making way to the Mausoleum in the glass niche they now rested together.
I hadn’t had the courage to attend my late Sister’s urn interment in May when she was placed next to my father due to a very deep fallout with my mother at the time, so the experience and feelings were ones of many firsts. This amplified everything. Upon entering the ground it was a new journey of awe and wander. I followed the path of the winding road and gazed upon the many gravestones that were being unkept by the maintenance crew. Everything appeared brighter, quieter and peaceful. From the trees to the shubery and the intense clouds in the sky perfectly created an atmosphere of stillness in time. I imagined the many buried bodies returned to the earth and that gave me peace of mind.
Entering the mausoleum felt more powerful and dramatic than it ever did before with the background of the particulars day sky. I was mesmerized but how grand everything seemed. I had recalled my prior visits before and they were almost always with my late sister and I visiting our late father. I still remembered and imagined her walking by my side. The interior of the mausoleum was ever so grand and because it was filled with beautiful glass chandeliers and vaults lit by magestical chandeliers it had a different energy than the cemetery itself because it was a big building that felt like it protruded from the earth into the sky intermixed with floor to ceiling stained glass which transformed to shining lantern at night.
Every step of entering the mausoleum felt big and imposing from calling for a code for entry and walking heavy footed through the corridors lined with glass niches and up the stairs towards the section where my late father and sister lay.
I had a deep calling and confirmation to Death work only a few months after my sister, Sacha Charles was tragically murdered by intimate partner violence in October 2025. Her death was not the only one that shook me to the core. Bearing witness to the decline of my Father, Clayton Charles after a fatal cancer prognosis and admittance to Sunnybrook Hospital 7 years ago on August 6th 2019 made me perplexed and saddened about dying with dignity.
What is often experienced when a family member is dying are the new dynamics that unfold between them often unravelling an untold story. It’s an educational lesson, a crash course if you will on what is deemed one of the most challenging human experiences and rites of passage to face.
The many layers of dying brings a unique subset of beliefs and values that may clash. Added to the complexity of the situation was although my dad had cancer for 3 years, he never spoke of the end of life.
I am in no way blaming my father for never discussing his wishes because it stems from our culture of seeing death as taboo and topic that should never be discussed. The repercussions to this is during a time of high stress and grief, family members develop opposing views that may never have been the wishes of the dying.
What we witnessed as a family as a result was pure chaos and sheer tragedy not knowing what it is my father may have wanted and his wishes for the end of life. If we were in the least bit knowledgeable to signs of the end of life we would have recognized them, respected them and cared for our Father the way he should have been cared for.
Instead, the last 31 days of his death was spent in a hospital where they had tried every method to keep him alive. I watched my dad unconscious and wither away to nothing during those 31 days. The last 12 hours of his life he was rushed last minute to the hospital’s palliative care building to the last remaining room that was crowded with two other patients and their friends and families.
Rather than a family coming together during such a tender time we banded against each other. My mother clung to every little hope of him staying alive and my sister and I knew that the end was near. There was no family plan, we were disjointed. My mother exhausted stayed by my father’s side at the hospital 24/7 and argued with doctors for more treatment while my sister couldn’t bear witness to what was happening. Furious at our mother she would visit the hospital then enter the room for several minutes and leave or stayed in the lounge unable to see our father.
oftentimes she would argue with my mother and say it was delusional to put our father through what he was going through, I silently agreed but never had the strength to speak up to our mother, instead, I ensured I was at the hospital everyday for most of the day to care for my father as little as I could and try to find ways to get my mother to see that he was dying.
My sister and I grew closer during this senseless tragedy and we felt each other’s pain in deep camaraderie. (To be continued …)
My Sister Sacha Charles (left) and Father Clayton Charles (right)
Do I ever miss you both.
May you rest in peace together, forever.
