Helping her live through a painful illness has somehow has brought us closer together — July 23 is a date that makes my shoulders tense. I was 11, and my mom was about to die. I remember calling my dad, who was working evenings driving a taxi, to come home because Mom was really sick. Truth be told, she had been sick for quite some…

The pain lives and breathes in the colour of my skin, but most never see it. I’m 27. Canadian. A writer. And Black. There are think pieces that can describe what it feels like to be the first three of those things. Funny anecdotes abound about being a mid-to-late twenty…