Palliative Care Unit: Maria Cruz

Drink Coffee Dept: If you need to be inspired, you should come here too, according to The Star. Across from her, a bird-thin woman named Adrienne Magennis says this: As a child I was bullied. In the 1970s and 80s I developed an eating disorder. I was so severely ill that I was put on a palliative care unit and told I would die at 57 pounds. People around me died every day and if you feel sorry for yourself, there s a spirit spa in Parkdale you should go to. It s in a long yellow room above the community centre for the poor, where ragged men drink coffee and type emails. Three mornings a week, 12 women gather here to learn how to talk again. Ana Maria Cruz introduces herself like this: The radio station where I worked for 17 years in Peru was blown up by terrorists. I left my children and everything I had. I spent eight months waiting in a small room in the Presbyterian Church. The only job I could find here was sorting clothes in the Goodwill. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.