The Staircase Letters: An Extraordinary Friendship at the End of Life.

Naomi Brun is a freelance writer and a book reviewer for The Hamilton
Spectator.

Elma Gerwin and Arthur Motyer had a special bond. Gerwin was a student at Bishop’s University, and Motyer was her professor, or, more accurately, her mentor. Motyer held Gerwin in high regard, describing her as a brilliant pupil, and they soon became friends. As time marched on, Gerwin married a philosopher and moved out west, so Motyer and Gerwin maintained their connection by writing letters. In February 2001, Gerwin wrote Motyer to tell him that she had been diagnosed with colon cancer. She wanted to explore life and death with her old friend, inviting novelist Carol Shields, who had been diagnosed with breast cancer in 1998, to join them. The Staircase Letters is the end result, an epistolary voyage through the last stages of life by three poetic, philosophical souls.

Gerwin, Motyer, and Shields all believed that the world was a beautiful place to live in. Mahler, in “The Song of the Earth,” wrote the verse that was to become the anthem for the three correspondents: “Still is my heart! / It is awaiting its hour! / Everywhere the lovely earth blossoms / forth in spring and grows green anew! / Everywhere, for ever, horizons are blue and bright! / For ever and ever.” Believing that the world would continue in its beauty after they were gone gave the dying women a focus beyond themselves. It allowed them to focus on a future that they would never see, and be glad for it.

The three writers also focused on the importance of making a good death. “Dying, after all, is the last living thing we have to do, and one would hope to get it right.” This attitude gave them strength as they lost their hair, as their bodies suffered under the assaults of chemotherapy, and allowed them to focus instead on what really mattered in their lives: their relationships, their work, and living with integrity to their last day.

At present, Motyer is the only survivor of the three. He has given the world a beautiful treatise on what it means to live and die, and by doing so, he has honoured his friends in the best way possible.