Sad News

“My beloved life partner Janet Stuart ” SlamDog ” McClelland departed the earth monday Nov.18, 2024 at 3 pm. She was a fantastic educator, artist, musician, lifter of spirits and enabler of dreams.

Born in Baltimore , Maryland she came to Canada in the early seventies from NYC where she studied theater arts and education at Hunter College. She taught for 3 years in Baltimore and 2 in NYC before deciding to move to Toronto ,Canada due to American racism, the Vietnam War and the dangers of living as a poor student and teacher in NYC.

At her Celebration of Life which we will have in January 18, at St. George’s Grange Park Church ( 30 Stephanie St ) 1 to 5 PM, I’ll play a video of her recounting her 3 traumatic life and death events in NYC.

Two involved late nite confrontations with men with knives and 1 with a man with a gun. In the latter she was saved by the bravery of 4 young Puerto Rican men ( 18 to 19 years old ) who told her  “Miss, he won’t be bothering you any more“.

Janet fell in love with the diversity she saw in Toronto and found work as a teacher devoting herself to education and equality. She filled young minds with love and a belief that they could fulfill their dreams.

She created a steel band ( One World Pan ) at Essex school and they gave concerts at other schools. She fought for bringing in Afro-Centric programs into her schools and brought them into her classrooms.

There were many times that a grown man would stop her and say you’re Janet McClelland. You were my favourite teacher in school. Sometimes they would have their son with them and by looking at the son she remembered the grown man.

One time 2 former students took her out for a drink. When she went to pay they said “No Miss we’ll pay, we’re both making 6 figures now.”
She gave all her students love and hope and loved the challenge of turning a so called problem student into a model one.

She was the inspiration and Co -founder of Samba Squad. Without Janet there wouldn’t have been Samba Squad. She was a key member of the squad playing Surdo primeira and over the Samba Squad years we shared many great musical moments. The Samba Kidz program was started at Rose Avenue school when she was teaching there and some of those young kids became strong members of Samba Squad.

She was my biggest supporter and the biggest fan of Montuno Police my Global jazz group. As we took her last ride west on Queen street in an ambulance from St. Mikes I told her that Gord Sheard had written a song called Quincas Last Crawl about a Brazilian musician taking his last journey through the bars of Salvador . I told her that this was her last crawl on Queen st. She smiled.

After retiring from teaching 15 years ago she has devoted herself to art. Portrait painting and creating mosaics.

Janet was a warrior. 25 years ago she fought through 4 knee surgeries. One on her right knee and 3 on her left before it was done right.
In the last few years she had spinal surgery which left her with lumbar pain that she was taking morphine tablets to alleviate. She also had hip replacement surgery which went well.

Through all that she remained positive and upbeat.

Now using a Nexus walker she was able to get around on her own, feeding her beloved squirrels in Grange Park, giving birdseed to the pigeons and using her Bubble Gun to thrill young children with bubbles. Some days we would play music together on the park bench.
I’m attaching a pic of her cheering Samba Squad on during the Labour Day parade this year.
On Oct 17 at 6:30 am all was well and as she sat down beside me to have her morning coffee she said ( “I can’t feel my left leg”)
I jumped up and started massaging her left arm and leg and she couldn’t feel it. She said I’m having a stroke call an ambulance which I did.
Ambulance came and took her to St. Mikes where a CT Scan revealed she had suffered a “Bleeding on the brain ” which caused paralysis of her left arm and leg. Her mind was fine. After 2 days in the ICU she was moved to the stroke unit where they began physio. She regained some movement in her left leg and minimal movement in her left arm, only her fingers.

She did not meet the criteria to be admitted into Bridgepoint but was accepted at Providence at St. Clair and Warden , which has long term care as well as rehab. She had started MAID consultation from the moment she arrived at the stroke unit but I was pushing for rehab. I had finally convinced her to try rehab and hospital said she was accepted at Providence and would be moved on the morning of Nov.9

Nov.8 she said she wanted to talk to me and to not get mad . She said she had changed her mind.
This time I agreed it was the right decision. She was confined in bed and dependent on nurses for everything. For her the lack of mobility and unable to handle her personal care was total hell. After she made her decision a doctor told her that the chance of regaining enough mobility to handle her person care was highly unlikely. At this point she had been at St. Mikes for 3 weeks. By going to Providence she would have faced a future of slowly withering away.

She made her decision and was adamant about it and I totally agreed. She said her body was broken and that she had had a great life and now it was time to leave. She said she hated to leave me but I agreed it was time to end the suffering and she ended it on her own terms. I was glad we had MAID available in Canada. She was moved to the palliative floor on monday evening Nov.11 and the date was set for Nov.18. Even though she had paralysis the nerve receptors in her left arm and leg were alive and well and causing her a great amount of pain. She was given morphine whenever she needed it. It would alleviate the pain but cause some mental confusion.

However when friends visited she was completely lucid and if you had a phone conversation with her you wouldn’t know there was anything wrong.
She was moved to MAID house on Nov 18 at 11:30 am.

She was surrounded by 6 close friends. We talked, listened to reggae music and shared champagne.
At the end it was just me and her and I held her and caressed her face and told her what a great life and love we shared .
No one knows what happens at the end but hopefully she’ll be there to take my hand and lead me on when my time comes.” ~ Rick Lazar

Janet’s Celebration of Life will be on Saturday January 18

at St. George’s Grange Park Church ( 30 Stephanie St )

from 1 to 5 PM