In the weeks leading up to his death, Craig Mackie’s breathing mirrored the short, sharp strokes he was making on his laptop keyboard, documenting his final days.
“At this point in my fading life, I’m struggling to breathe every day,” Mackie said from his kitchen table in Charlottetown, in early October 2022.
A rapid decline due to pulmonary fibrosis had left Mackie, 71, endlessly gasping for air, requiring near-constant support on oxygen. For months, he used his remaining energy to write at length about his health, drafting dispatches from the confines of his home and sometimes a hospital bed. Then he shared these thoughts publicly, on a blog