Tuesday, April 14, 2015

My Friend Helen

Today my friend Helen Henderson passed away from lung cancer.  She was 68.  Helen didn't even smoke.

Star's Helen Henderson--champion-for-thedisabled-dies at 68.


Our friendship began 10 years ago, when I went to her desk at the Star and asked her if she could review an anthology book in her next column. She agreed, and said that she was particularly interested in reading the story I had written.  "Finally, a Book to Help Parents of Disabled

Several months later, after I was fed up with fighting with Tobias House about its abusive attendants, I contacted Helen again to help me expose what was going on, not just in my building but at other on-site attendant care facilities.

The shit hit the fan.  Helen wrote not one but two exposees on the subject.  People with disabilities from all over Ontario wrote in to the paper, telling their own accounts of abuse. The government began to investigate thesse claims, and they also made it mandatory for everyone applying as an attendant to first take a course and receive a certificate.

As for me -

To be continued ....

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