The preacher came down the aisle and led her to the front. He asked her to fall on her knees and she did. He blessed her and told her that she was saved and that her soul would go to heaven when she died.
Martha said, “Thank you, Jesus,” and shouted out, “Amen.”
As she rose to her feet and made her way slowly back to her seat, the preacher began singing.
Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost but now am found,
Was blind, but now can see.
’Twas Grace that taught
My heart to fear.
Grace, my fears relieved.
How precious did that Grace appear
The hour I first believed.
The congregation joined in with such gusto that the walls of the modest building appeared to shake.
But when Martha went home after the church service, she had second thoughts. What a fool I’ve been. What a spectacle I’ve made of myself. How can I look any of these people in the eye again? Now that I think about it, the preacher’s message doesn’t ring true. It’s no different from what the nuns and Father Antoine used to tell us. Maybe he’s right, but I’m not yet ready to write off the beliefs of the ancestors so easily. It makes no sense that a just God would send Native people, who had not heard the Word of the Lord throughout the ages, to eternal damnation. And in my heart, I’ll never give up my conviction that Gitche Manitou is the spirit that runs through all things.
Martha was, however, capable of adhering to two seemingly contradictory beliefs at the same time. She thus kept her strong faith in Native spirituality to herself and embraced Christianity on Sunday mornings during church services and on Thursday nights when she joined her new friends singing old-time Negro spirituals with their promise that the oppressed and humble in this life would obtain their reward in the next. Her depression and flashbacks were kept at bay at these times, but came back with greater intensity when she returned home from church and her religious fervour faded. She accordingly resumed binge drinking on Friday and Saturday nights, dimly aware that her behaviour made no sense, but believing she could function no other way.
Without realizing it, Martha began treating her daughter the same way the nuns had dealt with her when she was a girl. She continued to reject Raven’s efforts to help her and found fault with everything she did, nagging her about the way she dressed, the way she wore her hair, the amount of time she spent on homework, the music she listened to and the books she read.
“When I lived in Toronto,” Martha told her, “I saw two kinds of Native people—lazy ones and hard-working ones. The lazy ones were in the gutter. The hard-working ones studied hard, were proud of their heritage and made something of their lives. They became social workers, lawyers, doctors and teachers. Anything the white man could do, they could do. If you don’t straighten out, you’ll end up on the streets just like your father.”
To escape her mother’s tirades, Raven started staying out late at night and sharing her problems with her friends. That upset Martha even more and she would sit waiting for her daughter and berate her when she came home. Raven would ignore her mother and go directly to bed, rendering Martha speechless.
One night, however, as she waited up for her daughter, Martha began to drink. And the more she drank, the angrier she became, thinking back to the punishments she had suffered at the hands of the nuns for offences not nearly as serious as staying out late at night and most likely getting into all manner of trouble. That led her to remember being beaten and thrown into the coal cellar for trying to help Little Joe, and she began to feel morose and sorry for herself.
By the time Raven came home, Martha had worked herself up into a drunken rage.
“I bet you’ve been smoking pot and making out with the boys,” she said, grabbing hold of her, pushing her down on the sofa and lashing her with a belt. “The Good Book says ‘Spare the rod and spoil the child,’ and this is for your own good.
“From now on you’re going to church every Sunday and I’ll be keeping an eye on you.”
But instead of intimidating her daughter, Martha made her defiant and rebellious. When she tried to hit her again for staying out late, Raven, who was tall and strong, tore the belt from her mother’s hands.
“How’d you like it if I hit you with a belt. Try that again and I’ll let you have it. You make me sick. Pretending to be religious, crying out in church on Sunday about being saved and coming home to drink yourself senseless and beat me. Spider, for all his faults, was never a hypocrite like you. I hate hypocrites! Now back off and leave me alone!”
Martha gave up trying to discipline her daughter and Raven continued roaming the community with kids seeking companionship and love wherever they could find it. They gathered at night behind the impersonal, windowless walls of the co-op to express their self-hatred and disgust at life and their revolt against their parents by smoking and drinking and littering the ground with empty cigarette packages and booze bottles, by cutting themselves with razor blades, by melting down over-the-counter drugs and injecting them into their veins, by swallowing Oxycodone and Percocet pills stolen from their parents who had smuggled them into the community to feed their own addictions, by inserting their heads into black garbage bags to sniff the fumes of gasoline and hairspray, and by squirting insect repellent straight into their nostrils to get a quick high.
When they emerged from the shadows, they scrawled HYPOCRITES GO HOME on the walls of their overcrowded, polluted and rotting school, giving the finger to the white teachers who arrived each fall promising to be their friends but who often betrayed them by leaving at Christmas and not coming back when the holidays were over. Out at the airport, they did the same thing, writing WELCOME TO HELL on the side of the terminal building to show their disdain for the so-called experts from the outside who flew in regularly to tinker ineffectually with the defective community water, sanitation and electrical systems.
But their rage was not confined to their parents and to the outsiders who had let them down. They turned against each other, like the children in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, with the bigger kids pushing around and exploiting the smaller ones. Initially relegated to the ranks of the young and weak, Raven was ordered to steal money and booze from her mother. When she refused, they tried to slap her around, but she refused to be bullied and fought back, defending herself using a piece of two-by-four as a club.
“Crazy bitch,” they called her. “You’re just as weird as your dingbat brother and mother.” But they left her alone and grudgingly accepted her into the ranks of the dominant group.
Some youngsters just opted out and killed themselves. For the suicide epidemic that had begun more than two decades earlier in northern Ontario among Native youth, well before Martha left the community for Toronto, had continued unchecked over the years. But in contrast to neighbouring communities such as Pikangikum, Wapekeka and Webeque, where at times in each place up to half a dozen young people took their lives annually, there was usually no more than one death from suicide each year at Cat Lake First Nation.
Thus when thirteen-year-old Rebecca took her life that fall, the shock wave of grief that rolled over the community was tempered by the expectation that it was unlikely there would be another self-inflicted death for some time. But then two more teenagers, Jonathan and Sara, took their lives, one after another in quick succession. And while they all killed themselves just after their thirteenth birthdays, nobody knew if that was just a coincidence.
Despite her problems, Martha was not so self-absorbed that she was unaware that an epidemic of youth suicide was ravaging the community. Every Sunday she prayed along with the members of her church for the souls of the departed. At the band office, it was the main topic of conversation among the staff and the ever-present crowd of hangers-on in the reception area. She even attended the funerals, and sobbed and cried out with the other mourners as the coffins were carried out for buri
al.
But in the grip of her depression, and either drunk or hungover much of the time, she shared the grief of the others from a distance, numbly, in a mechanical sort of way, just going through the motions. What was happening was horrific but it did not affect her personally. Certainly she never suspected her own daughter might be involved. Therefore when Raven, shortly after her thirteenth birthday, came into her bedroom one Saturday morning, shook her awake and told her she was part of a suicide pact with the three teenagers who had taken their lives, Martha did not grasp what her daughter was telling her.
“Whaz that? Whaz that? You’ve joined what? What’re you saying?”
“Nothing,” said Raven. “Nothing important.”
Joshua was eating breakfast with his wife when Raven knocked on their door and entered.
“Look who’s here,” he said. “Help yourself to some bannock and make yourself at home. Would you like some hot chocolate or tea?”
When Raven sat down on the couch but remained silent, Joshua’s wife looked at her desolate face and put on her shawl. “I’m going to leave you to it,” she said. “I got a few errands to run” and she went out the door.
“Now, how can I help?” Joshua asked, coming over to sit down beside her.
“Joshua,” Raven said, “you were there for me when Nokomis died. Can you help me again? I’ve no one to turn to and feel really bad. My mother drinks and cares only for Spider and she blames me for driving him into the bush. She never wanted me in the first place and has no use for me now. When I tried to talk to her this morning about something really important, she was so drunk she didn’t know what I was trying to say.”
“Take your time, Raven,” Joshua said. “When you’re ready, tell me what’s going on.”
Raven stared at the floor, struggling to find the strength to share her secret. When she began to sob, Joshua took her in his arms.
“That’s okay, Raven. Cry all you want and let me know how I can help when you’re ready.”
“It’s really hard,” she said. “It’s about the suicides. About the kids who killed themselves.”
“Yes,” said Joshua sharply. “What about the suicides? What’s it got to do with you? I hope you’re not thinking of doing the same thing?”
“It’s worse, Joshua. It’s worse than that. There was this suicide pact and I was part of it. There were four of us and we decided to die when we turned thirteen. Life at home was just so bad we didn’t want to go on living.”
Raven began crying again and when she calmed down somewhat, Joshua said, “I’m so sorry, Raven. It must have really been terrible. But please tell me more.”
“The others all went ahead and I’m the only one left and I’m no longer sure I want to do it. But if I don’t, I’ll be breaking my word to Rebecca, Jonathan and Sara. I’m so confused and I don’t know what to do. That’s why I’ve come to see you.”
Joshua was holding Raven in his arms as she was talking. He squeezed her even tighter, and when he released her, his eyes were full of tears.
“Raven, this is really serious and I’m glad you’ve come to see me. We got to talk this through. Although you’re only thirteen, you’ve got to help me help you.”
When Raven nodded her agreement, Joshua continued. “First, I want you to promise me you won’t do anything drastic. If you really feel like hurting yourself, you’ll come see me first. I’m not joking. Anytime of the day or night.”
“I’ll try,” said Raven. “But I don’t know how long I can hold out.”
“Let’s figure out what to do,” said Joshua. “In a way it’s a good thing you’ve come to me. This reserve has been rocked by suicide after suicide by young people just like you for far too long. But this current wave is heartbreaking. Never before have so many kids taken their lives in such a short time. We’ve been trying to put a stop to it, but we didn’t know who was part of the pact. Tell me, are there any other kids involved?”
“No one else came in with us but there are probably others who are thinking about doing it.”
After a minute’s reflection, Joshua said, “You probably know that I can’t, by myself, solve your problems. No one can. I’m not even sure I can help you to deal with your mother since I had no luck when I tried to get her to stop drinking. What we need to do is to get everyone working together. Because this reserve is sick. And one of the reasons it’s that way is because the parents and grandparents of the children were taken by the government and raised in residential schools. Your mother knows all about this, since she was one of them.
“You were lucky to escape all of that, living as you did with your wonderful Nokomis. You also have a mother who learned her language and culture again when she returned from residential school. But the bottom line is that most of us who attended residential school were never taught to be good parents, and your mother is part of that world. They never say I love you to their kids, and you and your friends feel unwanted. But those are just my views. What we need is to get everyone together to exchange information and look at options.”
“But that won’t work,” Raven said. “Just holding another meeting where everyone talks forever and never comes to any conclusions won’t help.”
Joshua went to the window and stared outside for a long time, and returned to the couch.
“There is another way,” he said. “What do you think about holding a healing circle and inviting the priest who molested the mothers of the kids who killed themselves to come meet with us? His name’s Father Lionel Antoine. He’s also the priest who abused your mother. It would be a long shot since the Church is having a hard time admitting its clergy did anything wrong and probably wouldn’t want him to come. He might even be dead.
“But if he is alive and he agreed to come, maybe your mother and the others will be able to have it out with him. Maybe he’d say he was sorry. Maybe the women he wronged can forgive him. And if they do, maybe they’ll be able to start to heal themselves. They might even be able to show some affection to you kids. I can’t think of anything that would do more to bring these suicides to an end. What do you think?”
“I’m all for it,” said Raven. “I just hope my mother agrees.”
“Let me handle your mother. I think our plan might just work. I’ve heard the archbishop of Quebec has a big heart and I’ll write to ask for his help. But keep it to yourself for the time being in case we can’t pull it off.”
14
The Church
SHORTLY THEREAFTER, Joshua sent the following letter to Archbishop Laframbroise.
Dear Archbishop Laframbroise,
I would like to introduce myself. I am the chief of Cat Lake First Nation, located 500 miles northwest of Thunder Bay in northern Ontario on the headwaters of the Albany River. We are proud Native people and our ancestors have lived in this area since time immemorial.
We have never met but I have been told that you are the head of the Catholic Church in Quebec. I am writing to you about something that is painful for me even to describe. The government in Ottawa working with the churches decided many years ago that they would take Native children from their parents and send them to residential schools to turn them into white people.
The people of my community had no choice and generations of our children were sent to a residential school run by your church on James Bay. Many of them returned crushed in spirit after being harshly treated by the staff and losing much of their language and culture.
Could you find it in your heart to help our community heal itself? We need to meet directly with a priest, Father Lionel Antoine, to come to terms with our pain. He sexually abused many of our girls in those years. If he is not alive or does not wish to come, could you send someone who is wise and compassionate to sit with us in a healing circle. My goal is not revenge but peace, reconciliation and healing.
Yours Truly,
Joshua Nanagushkin,
Chief, Cat Lake First Nation
The morning Archbishop Laframbroise received Joshua
’s letter, Bishop Thierry de Salaberry, the impeccably groomed cleric in his mid-thirties who helped him administer his archdiocese, had no idea his day would turn out so badly. As he did every day after mass, he ate breakfast alone in the dining room of his residence. Conscious of the dignity of his office, he insisted on eating on porcelain dishes using sterling silver cutlery on a polished mahogany table adorned with fresh-cut flowers.
His housekeeper served him freshly squeezed orange juice, crisp bacon, lightly poached eggs, whole wheat toast and orange marmalade, poured him a large cup of coffee, added cream and sugar, stirred it gently and handed him the daily newspapers. It was the time of day he enjoyed the most. He loved to drink his coffee slowly and to go through the morning papers, especially Le Devoir, favoured by Quebec intellectuals, at his leisure.
The bishop came from a prominent old Quebec family that counted many notaries and bishops in its lineage. It was a source of pride that he could trace his ancestry back to landowning nobility in Normandy, who had sent their sons across the Atlantic to become seigneurs in New France in the seventeenth century. As a youth he had attended the best classical college in the province. Afterwards, although experiencing no particular spiritual call, he decided to pursue a religious life and entered the seminary of Quebec.
Neither he nor his family, nor any of the senior members of the local clerical establishment, who were frequent dinner guests at his family’s elegant and well-appointed home, ever doubted that he was destined for greatness. He had been the most brilliant student at the classical college, mastering Greek and Latin with ease, and had excelled in English, French literature and rhetoric. His record of achievement had been the same at the seminary where his grasp of canon law and philosophy, in particular that of Saint Thomas Aquinas, had delighted his teachers.
As Long as the Rivers Flow Page 19