Love & Courage

by Jagmeet Singh

  I had been training in muay thai and jiu-jitsu pretty regularly in my last couple of years at Western, and I was really enjoying it. I figured I’d continue the training in Windsor.

  I opened the phone book to search for a new gym in Windsor. I flipped to the martial arts section. My finger ran down the listings in the yellow pages, past aikido, boxing, judo, and kickboxing.

  My finger stopped at muay thai. I continued reading the ad and stopped dead at the name of the instructor. There, staring back at me, was a name I knew from more than a decade earlier. That name was Mr. Reginald Neilson.

  There’s no way it’s the same Mr. Neilson, I thought to myself. This is just a coincidence. There’s no way he’s still teaching. He may not even be alive anymore.

  I don’t know why, but I picked up the phone and started dialing the number listed. I didn’t have a plan in mind. I just dialed it. Someone answered and said “Hello?”

  It was him. I slammed down the receiver.

  I felt a sickening sense of nausea as a decade of pent-up shame bubbled to the surface. Instantly, I was assaulted with memories, some of which were familiar and some that I had buried so deep that I’d almost forgotten them. The cloying smell of Old Spice overpowered me. It’s as though he had purposefully applied it to mask a stench. His severe shaved face came back to me in crystal-clear focus; I heard his gravelly, coarse voice training me, telling me what to do all those years ago.

  It triggered a flood. For a moment, I was reduced to my ten-year-old self, awash with shame and guilt. I remembered the “special program” he’d put me through, the way he manipulated me. I tried to fight the memories, to push them down again by using my mantra: Don’t think about it. Just don’t think about it. But it didn’t work. I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

  I had to face the familiar feelings of guilt and self-blame all over again. I should have known better. I should have seen through the program. How could I have let this happen? The shame came back, too, alongside the fear of people finding out. Who would believe the elaborate point system that he used and the pseudo-science he plied me with? Who would ever believe me?

  I slumped down into the kitchen chair, the weight of all these thoughts too much for me to bear. My next thoughts turned violent. I want revenge for what he did to me. I quickly shot that idea down. He was an old man—where would the honour be in that? Next, I thought about bringing him to justice. Maybe if I told someone, I could prevent him from abusing someone else. Sadly, I still didn’t have the courage to do that.

  Gurratan appeared by my side. “Hey, brother, is everything okay?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Everything’s cool. I gotta use the washroom, and I’m just being lazy.”

  He chuckled a little as I went upstairs.

  I walked into the washroom and locked the door behind me. I sat on the edge of the tub with my face in my hands and I cried.

  In all those years, I don’t think I’d ever let myself cry about what I’d endured. I slid off the edge of the tub and sat on the floor, hugging myself. It’s not your fault. You were a little kid. It’s not your fault, because an adult manipulated and assaulted you Don’t blame yourself for this.

  These were the powerful thoughts that at last soothed me. Later that year, another human being would say these words to me out loud, and those words are ones for which I remain eternally grateful.

  But in that moment, alone on the floor of the washroom, I began to shed a little of the shame and guilt. In that moment I realized how important it is not only to love the people around you but to love yourself.

  I didn’t have the courage to bring Mr. Neilson to justice then, and I regret that. I recently learned that he apparently died years ago. Now I do have the will to share my story. I hope that other victims of abuse who read this will feel safer than I did to speak out about what happened to them. I hope that they will have the courage to love themselves and to forgive themselves, because they were never to blame.

  Chapter Thirteen

  A DIFFERENT KIND OF FIGHT

  Eventually, I found a reputable club in Windsor, Furukawa Judo, where I could practise Brazilian jiu-jitsu, boxing, kickboxing, and judo. I loved that I could train a bunch of different styles with the team there. I continued competing in tournaments again throughout my time in law school. Back in Toronto I would train with different gyms and back in Windsor I kept training with the guys from Furukawa. My winning streak continued, and I slowly started making a name for myself in mixed martial arts circles as a good sparring partner.

  I ended up training with a couple of fighters who went on to compete in professional muay thai and MMA matches. One of my sparring partners was Jacob Conliffe. He fought heavyweight. He was a couple of weight classes heavier than me, but I held my own with him. He would get the better of me in striking, but I had a slight edge in grappling.

  Our coach at the time was Mike Nomikos. He was a skilled judoka in his own right, a black belt who competed regularly in submission grappling tournaments.

  One day after training, he said to me, “You know, you could probably fight professionally if you wanted.”

  “You think so? I mean, I like submission grappling tournaments and helping the guys out as a sparring partner, but I don’t know about fighting professionally.”

  “Well, you can hold your own with guys heavier than you who fight professionally. You can strike, grapple, and have cardio for days.”

  “Thanks, Mike,” I said, warmed by the compliment but not totally convinced.

  I loved martial arts. I found the practice and training incredibly rewarding. While I was interested in challenging myself and I was intrigued by the idea of taking it to the next level, I had bigger responsibilities to consider, so I couldn’t entertain the idea. I didn’t know it then, but a different kind of fight awaited me.

  For the first three months of law school, I lived in Scarborough with my aunt and uncle, the relatives who’d supported my parents when they first arrived in Canada twenty-six years earlier. I shared a room with their nephew, my cousin, who’d just arrived from Panjab for his university education. Sleeping in the room my parents once lived in, I felt like I’d stumbled into their footsteps.

  It didn’t take long for me to realize that the professor who first suggested I study law was clearly onto something—it felt like the right path for me. After my first year of mandatory subjects, instead of focusing on one particular field, I took a range of different courses—from refugee and immigration law, which appealed to my social justice passions, to patent and trademark law, which spoke to my science background.

  I found something interesting about every course I took. I was particularly fascinated with how laws keep society together, how they form links between all people. Sometimes these connections advance justice and sometimes they maintain inequality. Understanding how the law works gave me another frame in which to consider how we build a fairer society.

  One class struck me in a personal way. During a first-year criminal law course, our professor, Sonia Lawrence, lectured on manslaughter and fighting.

  “Can you consent to a non-professional fight?” she asked the class.

  “Of course,” I said, not so much sitting in my desk as slouching in my velour track suit.

  “Even if it leaves you with a serious head injury?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why’s that?” she asked.

  “When two guys ‘take it outside,’ there’s a certain amount of harm that they’re agreeing to,” I said with full confidence. “Obviously, nobody is consenting to being maimed. If someone pulls out a knife and stabs the other guy, he didn’t consent to that. But both of them are consenting to the risk of injury.”

  “What if that injury leaves him brain-dead? What if it kills him? One could argue that’s manslaughter.” Professor Lawrence recalled a case study involving two men in a street fight. The first punch that was thrown dropped one guy. His head hit a curb and he died. “Sure, he agreed to the fight,”
she said, “and there was no excessive force, there was no intention to kill. But that one punch resulted in a manslaughter charge.”

  “Was he convicted?” I asked.

  “He was,” she said. “You can’t consent to a fight that ends in death, but there’s no way to know it’ll end that way until it does.”

  I felt like I’d been hit with a thunderbolt. With just a few words, Professor Lawrence made me realize that I had never truly considered the repercussions of the violence. Even if you’re defending yourself, I realized, you can’t control the outcome. Life is so fragile and violence so unpredictable. I told myself I would find ways to project confidence without aggression, power without peril. Violence is no path to solving a problem.

  The answer didn’t come to me suddenly, but as I looked down at my track suit, I knew one place where I could start: my clothes. In my dad’s better days, I had seen how his tailored suits, slim trousers, vests, pocket squares, and English brogues elevated him above the stereotypes others might have of a brown-skinned immigrant.

  As a kid, I hadn’t understood the subtle power his clothing had.

  After I graduated from law school and started articling, people stared when I walked into court. If people were going to stare at me, I might as well give them something to look at. I started spending time in tailor shops, asking questions and getting a feel for fabrics. I learned the different cuts of suits and what they communicated. I paid close attention to fit, lapel width, and button placement. Each element of the suit communicated something. Taken in total, a suit could convey casual confidence or boardroom power.

  I began to trade loose T-shirts for fitted white dress shirts, and hoodies for blazers. Style and fashion became my new social armour, shielding me from stereotypes, disarming prejudices, communicating my dignity, and projecting my confidence even when I didn’t have much. I knew that I’d continue to get hit with stereotypes, myths, preconceived notions, and biases both conscious and unconscious. If my clothing could deflect some of that negativity, I’d use it to my advantage. If people were going to stare at me, I might as well give them something to stare at.

  Many years later, on King Street in downtown Toronto, I stepped out of the driver’s side of a car and heard someone shout my name. It was an MMA fighter I’d trained with and who I’d recently read about in sports news.

  “I saw your last fight on TV—congratulations!” I said, slapping him a handshake and pulling him in for a hug.

  “Thanks, man,” he said. “How’ve you been?”

  “I’m good,” I said with a smile.

  He pointed at my car. “Yeah, man, it looks like you’re doing really good. What happened?”

  “I’m a lawyer now,” I said. “But I miss the fight game.”

  “Don’t worry about the fight game,” he said. “You’re doing better than I ever could. You’re way ahead.” We were looking at each other as though we’d both made it—each with a little envy of the other’s success.

  Back during my first year of law school, though, I was nowhere near living anyone’s dreams. Sports cars and tailored suits felt like a distant, if not impossible, future. My family still lived under a mountain of debt, and it was ready to avalanche.

  Chapter Fourteen

  A PLACE TO CALL HOME

  Another thing I admired about my dad besides his big-hearted generosity was his resilient optimism. Even when the odds were against him, he still believed he could bounce back. It was that optimism that gave me hope that he could beat his illness.

  While my siblings had effectively ended communication with my dad, I tried my best to check in on him.

  “How’s it going, Dad?” I asked during a visit to Windsor.

  “Much, much better. I feel one hundred per cent, like a new man.”

  “That’s really good,” I said with reserved encouragement. As much as my logical mind kept recounting the countless times he said this in the past, I couldn’t help but feel a little hopeful.

  My dad didn’t betray a hint of defeatism—he never did when he was sober. I’d heard every variation of his positive assurances countless times before: “I’ll be fine.” “I’ll be back on my feet.” “I promise not to drink anymore.” “I’ll get back to work.” All of his statements were uttered with intensity and energy. I felt like an elderly man sitting with an old friend, affectionately listening to the same story as if it were new.

  “Dad, you really have to stop drinking. It’s obviously going to take a toll on your health. It also really takes a toll on Mom.”

  He closed his eyes, overcome with shame. “I don’t always remember what happens when I drink,” he said with tears forming in his eyes. He quickly blinked them away.

  In sharp contrast, I couldn’t help but remember everything he did and said when he was drunk. Each memory was etched into my mind. Perhaps his mind had shut out fifteen years of trauma, a condition of brain atrophy or blacking out. But in these more tender moments with my dad, I saw his caring and thoughtful side, the father who had always tried to give his family everything, the man who was generous to a fault, with an intense ambition and will to succeed.

  “I’m really enjoying law school,” I said. “The classes are great, and I’ve got my own place in the student residence. I think law is going to work out for me.”

  “That makes me happy,” he said. “How are your brother and sister?”

  “Manjot is doing well. And Gurratan loves McMaster. He’s getting into activism, so he’s busy, but he wishes Jugnu could live with him instead of here in Windsor.”

  “I’m glad,” my dad said. He paused and looked at his hands. “Do you have enough money?”

  I caught my breath. He and I both knew that we were hard-pressed to make ends meet, but neither of us wanted to say it out loud. “I’m on top of it,” I said.

  The truth was, there was only so much I could do to help with my parents’ financial situation. I had made a deal with my parents’ creditors to have them pay a certain monthly amount, but it was still more than my parents could afford. The calls demanding repayment had become more threatening, and because my mom couldn’t bring herself to answer the calls, I often bore the brunt of them. I tried not letting it get to me but every time UNKNOWN CALLER appeared on my cell display, I thought twice about answering.

  “We know what you’re doing with your finances—we know you have money,” one creditor said.

  “We just need some more time,” I said. “We’ll get the rest of the payment sorted out.”

  “We know the value of your house. If you keep defaulting, we’re coming for it.”

  Even though it was just a voice on the phone, I was filled with fear and anxiety as I hung up. I wasn’t sure if the creditors could actually make good on those threats, but I didn’t want to take chances.

  I needed some expert advice. There was no way we could continue the way we were going. We were slowly bleeding dry. I took a hard look at our situation and made a call to a bankruptcy trustee. I asked if I could get some preliminary advice on the phone. The trustee agreed and started asking some questions.

  “How much is the debt?” he asked.

  “Between a line of credit and the remaining mortgages, it’s substantial.”

  “And your monthly payments?” he asked. When I told him the number, he agreed that was completely unsustainable. “What do you have in terms of assets?”

  “My parents have their RRSPs and a house they live in,” I said.

  “My suggestion? Sell the house, cash the savings, and pay off your debt,” he said.

  “Are you serious?” I asked. “Then my parents will have no money and no place to live. Why would they do that?”

  “I know maybe it’s not what you want to hear. But if you do all of that, you’ll be able to pay your debts. That’s the best advice I can give you.”

  I was just twenty-four, and I was scared of mismanaging the family finances. I honestly didn’t know what to do, but I also knew my mom was similarly lost a
nd my dad wasn’t in a state to help. There was no one else to pass these decisions on to—I had to figure it out.

  Near the end of one of my semesters, my mom called me in distress. My dad was back at home from rehab, but he wasn’t well. Things had gotten much worse. He was at an all-time low.

  “He’s unpredictable,” my mom said.

  “That’s not a healthy environment,” I told her. I knew I wouldn’t be able to focus on my finals if I was constantly worried about my mom, so I proposed a wild idea.

  “I’ll bring Dad to live with me in my apartment,” I said.

  I hung up and looked around my place, a bachelor suite in York University’s graduate student residence: a kitchenette and bathroom on one side, one open space with a coffee table and some padded seating, and a twin-size futon crammed in the opposite corner. It would be a tight fit with the two of us in my apartment, but it was better than my dad being at home, and there was nowhere else for him to go.

  I picked him up the following Friday and brought him back to the apartment. That first night, knowing my mom finally had some peace at home, I slept better on the floor cushions than I had for weeks beforehand in my bed. But my dad quickly became distracting. I had to keep my eye on him constantly, to keep him from walking to a liquor store, to keep him from going to a bar. I prepared heavy meals—my epic pastas—to fill him and struck up random conversations to prevent him from getting bored. I couldn’t give him any excuse to leave. But, of course, I couldn’t always stay by his side.

  On the fifth day, I came home from class and knew at a glance that he’d been drinking. Everything about him was slightly off: his eyes were glassy, his voice was a bit slurred, and he was slow to look me in the eye.

  “You’re drinking,” I said.

  “No, I promise—”

  “I’m not asking you.” My voice was cold and hard; I didn’t raise my voice but I didn’t need to. “How could you do this to me? I’m in law school now, I’m trying to get my life started—don’t you realize you’re messing with that?”