Discharged: Saying good-bye to an old hospital building

If memory serves, the dessert was either rice puddling or Jell-O. If there were additional choices in that cafeteria, it’s likely my mother, Louise, narrowed them down for her eight- or nine-year-old, who was vibrating with excitement to see his mom’s workplace. The other thing I remember vividly about that big hospital on Coxwell Avenue was the little tuck shop in the lobby. After our meal, mom would give me change and send me inside for gum. She’d reassure me that although the clerk was blind, he’d be able to feel the money to produce the correct change. And I was fascinated.

That was 1976 or 1977, and the fact that my oldest brother, Michael, was out of high school, working, and able to assume some of the responsibilities for raising me meant that my mother could partially fulfill her dream of being a nurse at what was then called Toronto East General Hospital as a ward aide.