Part of the thing with running along the downtown waterfront in T.O. is that you have to negotiate crazybusy traffic arteries and their colossal sentinels, the condo towers, in order to get there. And back.
Near the stadium, on a street called Navy Wharf, (which is NOT a wharf at all) there are a few such condo colossi.
One in particular is haunted. Not by ghosts, but by memory.
I remember when Matthew and Adam lived there. My brothers. On the zillionth floor. Not living there because they were jet-setting, BMW-driving, young upwardly mobile downtowners with limited interest in community.
They probably would have preferred to live perched atop a steep hillside overlooking Davenport Rd., and the rest of the city, as they had before Matthew was diagnosed with ALS, or Lou Gehrig's Disease.
ALS gradually robs you of your physical abilities, while your mind remains lucid. It's a terminal illness for which there is no cure, and limited treatment.
As the condition took hold, Matthew needed flat terrain in order to get in and out of the house. First with his cane, then his walker...and then his wheelchair. This highrise condo rental met that need. Plus it was next door to the Dome, within striking distance of a Jays game. Adam decided to move there with Matthew.
We were all innocents on the journey, devastated by what was happening to Matthew, but firm in our belief that we could do something. Although he may not have been sure he had a choice, Adam's decision was made, I think, out of deep love, and a profound feeling that he was to be his brother's keeper - a duty, and an honour, that lives in the blood.
I would visit Matthew one night a week, and we would have sushi. We would talk about a lot of things. Sort things out. Get sad about things. Get defiant. He would show me his artwork. We would watch baseball. I would sleep over there, and walk to work in the early morning. He kicked me out once for asking a couple of pretty serious questions and demanding an answer.
This was hard. This was a time of losing things, slowly, relentlessly. Matthew was losing things, none of us could imagine what it was like to be him. I felt lost - but even then I didn't know how far adrift I was. I can't speak for anyone else. I've learned the very best thing is to listen.
It's been a few years since they lived at Navy Wharf. Matthew is in his own place, in a real community, and he's in uncharted territory, which might be familiar to him by now. He's now lived longer than the vast majority of people who encounter ALS. Even though he needs assistance to do every single thing, he is very mindful of the concept of independence.
As close as the three of us Foley brothers are, there is a blurry spot deep inside that apartment that I will never resolve. A smudge. I wasn't there. It was Matthew and Adam, both intimately engaged in the struggle. I feel it, in the silence, when I remember. But I can't ever know it.
See, I jog along Navy Wharf, and things like this come up, but in ONE SECOND, like THAT. Much, much shorter than the time it takes to write or read something like this.
In another second, I remember Rose, the security guard, who really gave a damn about Matthew, and Adam, and my Mom and Dad, and my family. Sometimes it seemed she was the only one, in that great hulking concrete filing cabinet full of lives and lifestyles. I can see her now, salt and pepper perm behind that slab of a desk, in the lobby, on the ground.
.
