Art became his healing after brain tumour. Now he's helping seniors find theirs.

The pain came without warning. Amir Khatami was walking around Ambleside Park in West Vancouver on a mid-July afternoon last year when a hammer-like sensation struck his head—a thunderclap headache, sudden and excruciating. When he got home, he mentioned it to his son Parsa, who was studying medicine at UBC. Parsa's gut told him this was serious. Without alarming his father, he suggested a hospital visit to be safe.

At Vancouver General Hospital, Parsa told a nurse about the headache. Within hours, scans revealed what no one wants to hear: a brain tumour.

Amir, now 63, had always been disciplined—running, working out daily, a 30-year career as a dentist. The diagnosis devastated him. Surgery to remove the tumour went well, but it left him with loss of function in his hands and numbness on the right side of his face. The tumour had been close to the parts of his brain controlling vision and motor control. He was forced to step away from dentistry entirely.

"When you deal with a catastrophic diagnosis or something that's hard for a person like a brain tumour diagnosis, it can lead you to a very dark place," Amir said. "In order to successfully recover and heal, you must have something inside of you to be able to overcome that."

That something turned out to be art—specifically, the traditional Persian marbling technique Ebru that had occupied his early life before the family moved to West Vancouver 12 years ago from Iran. His father and grandfather had practiced it for generations. The medium is simple but meditative: a carrageenan solution lets paint float on top, which Amir manipulates with a brush. When the pattern looks right, he places paper on the surface, pulls it out carefully, and ends with a unique, one-of-a-kind design. Each piece takes patience and presence.

Getting back into marbling felt natural. Amir had created more than 1,000 pieces in his life and held numerous exhibitions. But this time, it wasn't about production—it was therapy. The rhythmic movement, the color mixing, the focus required: all of it pulled him out of the dark place the diagnosis had created.

Parsa watched his father transform. The impact was so profound that an idea sparked between them: why not share this healing practice with others who needed it?

In 2024, they launched Amir Marble Social Connection and Health Aging Society, a non-profit offering marbling workshops as art therapy specifically designed to reduce senior isolation. The timing mattered. Research from Johns Hopkins shows that socially isolated seniors have a 27 percent higher risk of developing dementia compared to older adults who remain socially active. A 2024 survey from the National Institute on Ageing found that 43 percent of Canadians 50 and older are at risk of social isolation, and up to 59 percent have experienced loneliness.

"Social isolation and not having recreation activity and creativity can actually be a risk factor for things like dementia," Parsa explained. "So this fills that gap."

The 90-minute workshops run at various centres across the Lower Mainland. Attendees hear Amir's story, learn the history behind marbling, and create several art pieces to take home. Since launching, more than 400 seniors have participated.

Amir brings the same discipline to teaching that he brought to dentistry and the daily practice of marbling. He speaks about the tradition—how it connects to Persian poetry and culture, how the act of creation itself is a form of meditation. But mostly, he shows up and does the work, hands guiding paint across liquid, creating something beautiful from nothing.

For seniors in the room, many dealing with their own health challenges, grief, or isolation, watching someone who survived a brain tumour create art with patience and joy offers something no lecture or policy paper can: proof that healing is possible, that creativity matters, and that it's never too late to start again.

Amir's recovery from his diagnosis will likely never be complete—the numbness on his face remains, his hands don't work exactly as they did. But in teaching marbling, he's found a second career, one that matters in ways his dentistry never did.