Lane Changer - Sybil Chandler (1928-2025), proud to find life’s off-ramp
Mom joins me at my first public reading, September 2024
My mother, Sybil, had a number of significant lane changes in her life: WWII replaced peacetime when she was 11; Canada replaced England as home at age 21; farm wife-dom and motherhood was her sole lane from age 23 to 57; and then she and Dad were in the happy retiree lane for two decades.
With his sudden death on her 79th birthday, Mom was involuntarily thrust into a new lane. She became the poster-child for responsible widowing. She pushed herself to re-enter the round dancing world where she and Dad had been a central couple, even though walking into the dancehall that first time to the applause of her friends made her want to crawl under the parquet. For four years, she proved her independence by staying alone in the country house Dad built. But then she decided on her own to sell and move into a retirement home. She participated so actively at Woodstock’s Oxford Gardens that I swear they nearly put her on an actual poster. I’d planned to feature Mom’s widowhood lane in this series, because I’ve so admired the way she embraced the challenge of solo life.
Instead, Mom’s lane change story is the one she was proudest of: exercising her right to a medically assisted death (MAiD) on August 3, 2025.
MAiD was legalized in Canada in 2016 with three key eligibility criteria: death had to be reasonably foreseeable; the person had to express intolerable suffering; and MAiD candidates had to have mental capacity during the assessment and at the time of death. That’s the framework under which my husband, Jack, died in November 2018.
In 2021, legislators expanded eligibility. One way they did so was to add Track 2 MAiD which removed the need for a reasonably foreseeable death but, for Track 2 cases, established more checks and balances, including a 90 day waiting period.
Since Jack’s death, Mom spoke of wanting MAiD when the time was right. For the last few years, she often contemplated getting assessed. She knew if she was eligible at all, her relatively robust health would likely make only Track 2 open to her. She suffered though from the restrictions her aged body provided including: reduced mobility, increased leg pain and tingly hands, inability to knit or hold a book, and so on. Yet the stiff upper lip of 97 years of living as an Englishwoman rendered her mouth incapable of forming the words necessary to convince even her own physician that she was suffering at all, much less intolerably.
In early July, two falls pushed my mother into the hospital lane. When she was released six days later, she relied for the first time on PSW support to dress and shower and she had to be hyper-vigilant to avoid more falls. Mom felt an even diminished independence and began looking in earnest for the MAiD off-ramp. When she met with the two independent assessors required by the law, she finally found the words necessary to articulate her intolerable suffering. She could not have been prouder or felt more empowered to advocate for herself for the first time in a long time. The pride I’ve felt about Mom’s gracious way of aging and living as a widow, has been eclipsed by the new admiration I feel for her ability to regain her voice at the most critical time in her life.
In the 11 days between her decision on July 23 and her death at 2 pm on August 3, Mom basked in the attention she deserved. She spoke in person and by phone with children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, overseas and out-of-province relatives, her Oxford Gardens friends, my friends and those of my siblings, former neighbours from Wingham and Ilderton, her financial advisor, her accountant, and couples she and Dad taught to dance two or more decades ago. Mom delighted at the affection and respect people shared with her. Life accelerated for those days as she jammed a lot of living in. Throughout she remained very, very content with her decision.
As we’ve seen in other profiles, lane changing can have a domino effect. In this case, Mom’s move to the off-ramp shifts me into the orphan lane. Mom and Dad’s greatest parenting accomplishment was creating independent children and I’m certainly proof of that. That said, I checked in weekly for the last 40 years by phone. I will miss discussing the current events we’d heard that week through our respective radios both permanently tuned to CBC, but I’m happy she won’t have to live through whatever global atrocities world leaders have in store for us; the implications of Canada’s aging population; or the ways the climate and housing crises will continue to grow, all topics of many phone chats.
I’ve always been able to make Mom laugh in those calls, and this week, when the calls have been more frequent, was no different. Non-believers both, we speculated that if there were an afterlife, Dad would for sure have hooked up again - otherwise who would make his lunch and do his laundry? We joked that Jack, too, would have found a 4th wife, since, well, Jack was that way. I pleaded with her to say the word I’ve been trying to get her to say for decades - fuck - just once, as a special favour to me. She laughed.
For the last decade, another way of connecting with Mom was through her Gmail account, her one nod to computer technology. I emailed her random snaps from my Humber River walks or amusing memes from Facebook. This week, I continued that practice too, sending a few more than usual.
We’ve also connected through my blog — she was a fan. She joked that she never knew as much about me. While ours was not a relationship that includes outpourings of emotion, in her quiet way, she was proud of the lanes I’ve been in professionally and personally, and my writing was no exception. I’m sorry Mom will not share in whatever new lanes future-Celia will explore.
Mom’s exit from life’s highway on Sunday brings up issues of my own mortality. With her example, though, I feel quite certain that one of my last activities will involve reconciling my bank which was the first thing she did upon being discharged from the hospital. (Something about an apple and an tree?)
I’m equally certain, that if circumstances allow, my last breath will occur, like hers, on my timetable. Because, when the law allows safe access to the off-ramp on your own terms, why wouldn’t you signal your intention and move over? Until that time, Mom lives on in my ‘get’s shit done’ nature. And for that, I’m forever grateful.
Missed previous Lane Changer profiles?
Peter Chandler, how it all began for me
Cathy Crowe, her lane is the street
Marissa Bastidas, same lane, new direction
Pam Hudak, living on a multi-lane highway
Jennifer, crossing lanes from Phuket to pup-minder
Emma Simpson, from taxiway to writing terminal
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