Home Safe by Mitchell Consky

ABOUT
During a pandemic lockdown full of pyjama dance parties, life talks, and final goodbyes, a family helps a father die with dignity.

In April 2020, journalist Mitchell Consky received bad news: his father was diagnosed with a rare and terminal cancer, with less than two months to live. Suddenly, he and his extended family — many of them healthcare workers — were tasked with reconciling the social distancing required by the Covid-19 pandemic with a family-based approach to end-of-life care. The result was a home hospice during the first lockdown. Suspended within the chaos of medication and treatments were dance parties, episodes of Tiger King, and his father’s many deadpan jokes.

Leaning into his journalistic intuitions, Mitchell interviewed his father daily, making audio recordings of final talks, emotional goodbyes, and the unexpected laughter that filled his father’s final days. Serving as a catalyst for fatherly affection, these interviews became an opportunity for emotional confession during the slowed-down time of a shuttered world, and reflect how far a family went in making a dying loved one feel safe at home.

About the Author

Mitchell Consky is a journalist with works published in the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, the Walrus, and BNN Bloomberg. He specializes in long-form feature writing and essays about loss, travel, and adventure. When not working, his ideal escape is drifting on a canoe in Ontario’s Algonquin Park. He lives in Toronto.

My Thoughts

Finding out your father has cancer is one of the most horrible nightmares you can live through. Knowing that you can’t do much to help with what they are going through is very traumatic.

This is the true story of Mitchell Consky and what he and his family had to endure during Covid lockdown and trying to find peace during the worst moments in life.

The candid take on cancer treatments as well as the suffering of the family is a refreshing change of pace from the more morbid after effects of cancer on the family. I think it shows a more positive outlook which is great since it was making the best of a bad situation.

The writing style of this memoir was very fluid which I would expect nothing less of a journalist as highly trained as Mitchell Consky.

The depiction of his father as showing humour throughout the treatments and how the family all rallied around him despite not being able to physically be with him.

The book is decidedly optimistic showing the love that the family has for the father and how even though he is no longer with them that they still can have joy in their lives.

I can’t say that the book was great as the content was very sad and had tears in my eyes a number of times. What it was well extremely well written showing a side of cancer and end of life that can be seen as uplifting as well as sad.

I had the honour of meeting the author at the Toronto Book Festival on May 27th and was able to hear him speak a bit about his book. It was great to hear him talking about his book with others as well as myself. The talk was short but it made me want to read the book even more after hearing him speak.