And after all, it seems to be a completely random tradition that Novembers bring more publishing news for me, and indeed the issue was released in November, but here we are. I have just returned from the clinic and am scarfing down some lunch before setting off on a walk across the city to meet another longtime client but I should really post now before I get distracted by all that December entails.

I have sold an essay! Even fancier than that, I was solicited for said essay by Heartline Spec’s managing editor Rebecca Bennett (who was also part of Apparition Lit’s editorial team, and we finally met in person this past summer and we decided hello yes we glomp now??) Heartlines Spec is unique among spec fic in that it only publishes stories that involve long-term relationships, and Rebecca asked if I could write something that pertained to my crematorium work.

Now, initially I was planning to write something a bit goofy and light-hearted, probably about the first time I had to perform a witnessing (when the family comes to watch the body be cremated) on my own and the vaudeville act that ensued, or the man who brought his own stepladder, or something of that ilk.

Who was to have known that an essay about relationships and crematoria could have ended up being actually very sad and personal, tis a mystery none could have forseen.

Because in early April 2025, Adam Lopez, the founder of the Toronto After Dark Film Festival, passed away, and he was brought to my crematorium and I didn’t know it until after he’d been and gone.

And oh fuck, it hurt.

It still hurts. I keep meaning to post some of my favourite movies I discovered through TADFF, or even an acknowledgement here that I knew of his passing, and clearly I have not. I never met the man but his death has affected me more than anyone else’s, family members included. It fucking sucks.

So Rebecca ended up with this essay, See You After Dark (When the Roll is Called Up Yonder), which is 100% factually how that went (hell, I didn’t even include the really downer shit, just know that the day I went back had even more depressing events involving the cemetery grounds), and like you don’t have to be as sad as I was when writing this but if you could be a little sad that would be nice for me, personally, “because it’s sad, Toby.”

And while it sure would be fun to keep mining this well of sad mixed metaphor, I do need to leave in half an hour and I’d like to not be a total wreck when walking in -8 Celsius (colder in the wind) and freezing my eyeballs out.

(Big thanks to Rebecca for letting me spill my guts across the internet, sure feels like a feeling, never want to do this again, I promise my next crematorium essay will be about the stepladder guy, bless him.)