Cynthia Anne Brouse 1957 - 2010

Canadian magazine readers who value the beauty and strength of accurate facts, immaculate punctuation and elegant, precise prose have lost a best friend. Cynthia Brouse, the country’s finest fact-checker, copy editor and teacher of those same skills died on June 19, 2010 at age 52.

For 30 years, Cynthia’s diligent and spirited behind-the-scenes labour has burnished articles and news features in all of Canada’s top-rung publications. She worked as a copy editor, researcher and writer for Maclean’s, Chatelaine, Toronto Life and Saturday Night (where she was also managing editor for two years), Report on Business Magazine, Canadian Business, and the Globe and Mail. A natural teacher, she trained scores of current magazine editorial staff in the best procedures for fact-checking contentious quotes, assessing the credibility of sources and avoiding lawsuits they could ill afford. Her book, After the Fact, A Guide to Fact-Checking for Magazines and Other Media, is the go-to manual for both magazine interns and corporate communicators nationally. In 2009, she received the National Magazine Awards’ most prestigious individual honour, its Foundation Award for Outstanding Achievement. She was the longtime co-ordinator of the Magazine Publishing Certificate Program in Ryerson University’s G. Raymond Chang School of Continuing Education, and for five years a member of the communications faculty at Toronto’s George Brown College. Although her ability to save the world from misplaced modifiers was prodigious, she strived to never make any writer feel diminished. She approached her calling with the same counsel she gave every new fact-checker: "Don’t be snooty. If they didn’t make mistakes, you wouldn’t have a job."

In addition to excelling as an editor, researcher and instructor, Cynthia was also an accomplished writer of creative non-fiction and personal journalism. Her painstakingly well-researched pieces earned her two National Magazine Awards. The blog entries she wrote after her breast cancer reoccurred in late 2008 were so rich with frank, funny and jargon-free details about being a seriously ill patient that both intimate friends and complete strangers admitted to her, with no small bewilderment, that they "enjoyed" the read.

Just as she always had your back if you were a freelance writer without the time or ability to hand in pristine copy, Cynthia was a stalwart friend and often the connecting thread between unalike communities in her wide and diverse circle of acquaintances. She publicly supported gay rights before many of her contemporaries understood how important it was for straight people to do so. She startled many a hip Torontonian with her rhapsodies on the glories of Alberta, and Edmonton in particular.

She had a lovely singing voice and adored John Lennon and Max Webster, punk rock, and folk music, symphonic and popular choirs in equal measures. Although she never achieved her desire to become a mother, she was a cherished friend and guide to her nephews and niece, and a vibrant, much-admired significant other to her friends’ offspring.

A native of Massey, Ont., Cynthia was a small-town girl deeply enamoured of northern Ontario and rural Canada. But she was also a booster of micro communities in the city, such as she found and enriched during her 14 years as a resident of Toronto’s Little India district. A recording of Cynthia describing one of her ’hood’s favourite retail sections can still be heard if you press a button on a certain north-side corner of Gerrard Street.

She leaves her parents, Jean and Terry Brouse, her siblings Mark, Paul and Lori, their spouses Susan Fullerton, Mirella Diodati and Robert Brazeau, and her beloved nephews and niece, Terence and Nicholas Brouse, Hannah and William Lamoureux, plus scores of dear friends and hundreds of colleagues. All of them will miss her chatty postcards, book recommendations and great meals, her incisive observations and uncensored anecdotes, her gifts of tolerance and kindness, and her vast capacity to love us all.

A private family service and interment will take place in Massey, Ontario. As well, a memorial service will be held in Toronto for family and friends in September.

Donations in Cynthia’s name should go to the building fund of the Massey Area Museum, 160 Sable St., Massey, Ont., POP 1PO.

Postscript

Cynthia passed away peacefully at St. Michael's hospital in Toronto on Saturday June 19th, 2010 at 1:50 am. At her side were her mother, sister and brothers.

The optimist's version

Dr. Haq is, as usual, just a little more optimistic than other doctors, so I wasn't surprised when she offered a slightly different take on Dr. Cuzamano. But in the end she didn't really recommend anything other than consulting another radiation doctor, and checking out the palliative care ward. I'm uncertain where I'll end up -- depends on whether I seem to be ready for the ward or not -- quite arbitrary. One thing I was grateful to learn, if sad, is something that's puzzled me for a while, especially when I heard how quickly Paul Quarrington died. Apparently, I could feel like a hundred bucks one day and die the next. This is helpful to know. My brothers and sister have stepped up to the plate and have been slowly taking over bill-paying, etc. Feels weird.

My brain is definitely not working properly, and I'll welcome people pointing this out to my family. I'm hoping my writing ability is strong, but retelling stories orally has become a ridiculous chore. I was warned about this by the radiation oncologist, so maybe it's temporary. But I'm quite confused when I try to sort out my day each morning when I wake up. Except I don't really recognize it till later in the day.

I will appreciate people telling my family if I start writing gobbledegook on this blog.

Pollyanna moment:
Sunday afternoon was wonderful. We all assembled in the sunshine in Mark's backyard and ate the most amazing cupcakes that were ordered specially for us from a cupcakery in the Beaches called, I think, Life is Sweet

The pessimist's version

Here's the text of an email I sent out last night to almost 100 people:

Hello, there:

First of all, let me explain and apologize for this mass email. Since I returned from my vacation in B.C., I've received dozens of emails, most of which I haven't responded to.

You may or may not know that I'm back in St. Michael's Hospital, again unable to walk, and heading for the palliative care ward. I'm sorry to give you bad news by email, but I feel I have to do it this way to save time, a precious commodity just now.

I've had slews of scans and tests over the past few days, and the news is dire: I probably have about three months to live. The only doctor I haven't consulted is "Dr. Noguff," who was awfully optimistic about a month ago -- but she's out of town.

Anyway, it's a lot to absorb. I am starting to feel overwhelmed, and also like it's time to circle the wagons. My choices about who I want to see in my last days are painful to make, but certainly my family comes first. (Especially as my sister's ex-husband, father of her young son and daughter, died suddenly last week.}

Some of you have heard this news already, and some of you haven't, and to be honest, I can't recall which is which. If you'd like to email back, I probably won't get a chance to reply. But I love knowing you're thinking of me, and of course I think of you often. And I'm sorry if you think our relationship merits more (or less) than this email -- it does, and we'll still be in touch. I'm just so worried that one of the 75+ people who've sent emails in the past month will feel out of the loop, and I'd like to respond while I still have my wits about me, and my ability to type. I'm just one of those people who can't leave an email unanswered!

Besides being unable to walk, I'm sleeping more now, and my hands are getting shaky, so typing is slow. I lose control of my bowels easily. Other than that I'm comfortable except for spine pain, which is mostly controlled by meds. The most important thing is feeling safe from falls.

I wouldn't say my brain is clear and focused, but it doesn't seem much worse than those of my middle-aged friends! Still, everything is about to fall apart, and whether I need or want everybody to witness that is doubtful.

However, I like to think I'll be lucky and see/talk to/hear from all of you again (on terra firma!). But because that's becoming less likely as the weeks pass, I will take a page from my cousin Terri-Lee, who would say to her father, my uncle Sheldon, as he lay dying: "I'll see you in my dreams!"

Matt and Joan D. and I have been following the World War II poster adage "Keep Calm and Carry On." Then Joan changed it to "Keep Calm and Eat Cupcakes." I would like to add: "Keep at least a few meters away from Cynthia after she's eaten cupcakes."

See you in my dreams! (And bring cupcakes! Angel food!)

Love, and eternal gratitude,

Cynthia

Tomorrow I will let you in on Dr. Lee's -- surprise! surprise! -- very, very marginally more optimistic take. Who knew...

Pollyanna moments:

• Lovely, warm visit with Robin last night, with the gift of poetry.
• Lovely, busy visit with C&M today; they gave my sore arm a break and Googled some medical info I needed.
• Lovely, helpful visit with a palliative counsellor today.
• My brothers continue to trudge in to see me, dragging things I need.
• My sister and her kids are coming to visit on the weekend.
  

Dignity

Picture this: you're near the front of the first-class cabin of an Air Canada flight, and you need to use the washroom. You stand up and immediately lose control of your bowels.

'Nuff said.

When I was singing with Rainbow Voices, now sadly a defunct choir, I was happy to learn and sing the music from Rent, particularly the round-style song about AIDS called "Will I?" (you can watch a short clip of it here.) The movie is a bit of a mishmash, but I've always found this part moving. Anyway, the lyrics are very simple:

Will I lose my dignity?
Will someone care?
Will I wake tomorrow from this nightmare?

I can now say with conviction that I have lost my dignity, and I won't wake tomorrow from this nightmare. But someone does care.

Alas, alack

I've been offline for four days and now seem to have my internet up in St. Michael's Hospital, where I've also been for four days.

On Friday night I found I was right back where I was in January -- no strength in my legs, falling every time I tried to stand up. My limbs are covered in huge bruises and scrapes. My friend Marie was with me the last couple of times I fell, with such enormous crashes I nearly scared us both to death, and she expertly arranged an ambulance to the location I wanted, while I sat cross-legged on the hardwood floor. More descending the house's front steps dramatically strapped into a chair, no doubt scaring the neighbours. I cried as I said goodbye to my house, knowing I might not see it again (I said that last time). But along with the sadness, I felt an enormous sense of relief, or at least of safety. The fear of falling has become very strong. However, I'm well aware that being ensconced in a safe bed, without much exercise or even the ability to roll over, is what will probably lead to my death.

I spent about six hours in Emerg -- it was quiet and comfortable, oddly, and my brothers and their wives showed up. I was admitted at 1 a.m.; they immediately did an MRI and I was tucked into bed by 2:30.

Since then I've been having MRI and CT scans, or waiting to have them, while trying to cancel various appointments without benefit of a working computer or papers that got left at home. Meanwhile coping with the usual dilemma: how many visitors is too many and how do I manage that impulse folks have to spend time with me, as well as my own impulse to be distracted by friends and have people around to fetch things for me. I say I want to be around folks who can be quiet and let me be quiet, too -- what the bad novels call companionable silence -- but today Diane pointed out that she tries to engineer such an atmosphere, but I won't shut up! And she's right. I love to talk, but more than that I feel so guilty when I don't engage -- I need to fill the void. It's one reason I never married. I feel like I'm being watched if another person is in the room, and I feel a huge burden to socially engage.

Anyway, I've let it be known that I don't want more than two short visits a day by non-family members, and people are mostly complying, but even with the wiki calendar, I feel like I spend a good chunk of the day scheduling people, despite help from friends who try to head them off at the pass. Oh, what a glorious problem to have -- too many wonderful pals!

Pollyanna moments:

• My brother Paul made me whole-wheat scones and stocked my fridge when I returned from B.C. He also took us to the airport. And last night he brought me the most hilarious tape of his youngest son, made when he was three or four, in which he very loudly and enthusiastically retells the Easter story. It's good enough for America's Home something-or-other, especially the parts about Joey and his dirty sandals.
  
• My brother Mark, along with Marie C., took me on a tour of a local retirement residence, which I was quite excited about, until my legs collapsed the very next day. Then he did my laundry, or he and his wife did.
  
• Mark and Daryl/Diane cut bouquets of lilacs from my precious tree, and my room (a private one!) smells divine. It looks pretty certain I won't see the tree bloom again.