When the doorbell rang that night at 9 p.m., Ian Knight had an uneasy feeling.

It was a Sunday evening in December, and he and his wife, Meagan, had already settled their one-year-old daughter into bed.

Life was busy. An outreach worker at The Salvation Army’s Gateway, an emergency shelter in Toronto, Ian was on the front line in responding to the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. He had also been caring and advocating for his mother, Katharyn, who was in declining health. There was a gift under their Christmas tree for her—a beautiful blanket, because she was often cold.

As he opened the door and saw a police officer, his heart sank. He knew immediately that it was about his mom.

Sad News

Ian grew up in Oshawa, Ont., in a rough part of town, with poverty, addiction and mental-health issues all around him. His parents divorced when he was young, and his mother was later diagnosed with schizophrenia. For many years, he was estranged from most of his family. But when his older brother, Jonathan, became a Christian in his university years, Ian saw a change in him.

“I saw how broken relationships were repaired,” Ian says. “I wanted something different. I wanted peace.”

Over time, he began his own journey of faith and became part of Sanctuary, a church and community in Toronto that seeks to share life with people who are poor and marginalized. From there, he joined The Salvation Army’s Gateway as a front-line worker. For the past several years, he has been part of the outreach team, caring for people who live outside.

“It means meeting people where they are, whether it’s a tent in a park, under a bridge, in the woods or at Tim Hortons,” he says. “Our focus is to find people and help them with housing. Some don’t want help, so we just offer community and friendship.”

But when the pandemic hit, the team was called back to the front line of shelter work. And with a new baby, born just a few months earlier, life was about getting through each day.

In September, he hadn’t been in touch with his mom for a while when his grandmother called.

“She said she was in bad shape,” he recalls. “She had always struggled with her mental health—she’d be good and then decline—and had diabetes. She wasn’t caring for herself and had lost close to a hundred pounds.”

“She passed away with dignity. She was found right away. It’s a deep, God-given comfort.” Ian Knight

Rebuilding a Relationship 

Ian took her to the hospital, where she was stabilized and then admitted to a mental-health ward for a couple of weeks. But he knew that wasn’t enough—she couldn’t go back to her apartment.

“I’ve been in some really bad apartments through my work, and this was probably the worst I’ve ever seen,” he says.

She needed a safe place to stay while getting back on her feet, but shelter beds were in short supply. Although he found it difficult to ask for help, Ian felt God’s presence with him as he spoke up on her behalf and with the support he received from colleagues.

“A bed came up the day we needed it,” he says. “Something like that—it’s God-given.”

By October, his mom was staying in a room overseen by The Salvation Army’s Florence Booth House, a shelter for women experiencing homelessness in Toronto. Ian saw her weekly to help with banking, doctor’s appointments or just for coffee. As they started to rebuild a relationship, they celebrated her birthday together, along with his brother, with pizza and cake.

“It was the first time in probably 15 years,” he says.

She was still underweight and struggling with her mental health. She didn’t say a lot, but she listened and nodded. She remembered many details and conversations from their childhoods. It was hard, and it was good.

Passing Away With Dignity

And then the police came to his door one Sunday evening, about six weeks later.

“It was right out of a movie,” says Ian. “I just wish it wasn’t my story.”The police told him that his mother had passed away early that morning, found by shelter workers as they dropped off breakfast. She died of complications from diabetes.

“She was just too sick at the end,” Ian says. “Her body didn’t have time to catch up.”

It was devastating news, especially since they had just started reconnecting. With pandemic restrictions and no vaccine, she hadn’t even met his daughter yet. But he took comfort in the way the last few months of her life unfolded.

“I knew where she was. I knew I could get a hold of her if I needed to. I knew she was safe, that she would be eating healthy meals,” he says. “I’m forever grateful to The Salvation Army for her receiving that care until she died.”

He knows things could have been different.

“If she had died at home, it could have been weeks before she was found, with her living situation the way it was,” he says. “She passed away with dignity. She was found right away. It’s a deep, God-given comfort.”

A Healing Process

It took Ian time to recover from the stress of this difficult season and to grieve his mother’s loss. Part of the healing process has been for him to tell the story and celebrate her life, even though it wasn’t always an easy relationship.

In his early years of working with people experiencing homelessness, Ian attended a conference where a spoken-word artist described this vocation as “messy, and beautiful.”

It’s how he describes this time in his life, too. It was tragic, hard and God was there.

“It was really messy, but beautiful.”

Photos: Courtesy of Ian Knight

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