You Just Never Know ...

One of the recurring -- and possibly overworked -- points I make when I talk about the Downtown East Side is that anyone is just one misstep away from winding up in a situation similar to the "street people". It might be something obvious or it might be something seemingly minor, that sets off a cascade of events.

I've known Mike since I started at Gospel Mission eight years ago. Nice-looking, pleasant, polite, 40-something, he would sit at or near the back and sing lustily during Worship. He loved singing, and had been in his school's choir in Prince Rupert, which had won awards in festivals.

But as the years went by, one could see changes in him. He'd be prone to outbursts of anger -- not directed at us, but he would come in and bend our ears about the way some of the advocacy groups he was involved with, like VANDU (the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users) would treat him. He was angry that they would ask him to leave meetings for being disruptive. How he was disruptive was never clear.

Certainly, Mike could be candid and maybe less than judicious in the things he said. When supporters of InSite -- the supervised injection facility -- turned out en masse for a court ruling regarding federal health-care funding, Mike was a no-show. "I missed out on thirty-five bucks," he said, explaining that had been promised to those who came for the demonstration. He then told me that he and others were given box lunches and a trip to Victoria for a demonstration at the Legislature.

Aside from exacerbating Mike's anger issues, the drug use has savaged his physical state, with ghastly open sores appearing on his face. I found it very easy to judge him, saying to myself, "so how are those 'drug users' rights' working out for you?"

Then, a couple of weeks ago, he shared a piece of information.

"My mother died 35 years ago this month," he said. "She, my auntie, my grandma, my sister and brother -- all killed in a car accident. It was just outside Edmonton on Highway 16 and they hit a tanker truck."

That was a jolt. I remembered that crash well. It was one of a number of fatal crashes in 1980 along what the papers were calling "Death Highway". Shortly after that, I had to drive that highway en route to my first radio job, in Lloydminster.

And now, here was someone directly affected by that string of disasters.

He went on. "My grandpa said, 'I got a bad feeling about Mikey going with you.' He didn't want me to go. 'I got a bad feeling,' he said."

"Wow," I said. "So you stayed home."

"Oh, no," Mike replied. "I went. I was the only survivor."

Suddenly, a lot of things fell into place.

So now, it becomes understandable that Mike would turn to drugs as the solution to his pain and his lingering grief ("survivor's remorse" is probably a part of that). Personally, I'm no more in favor of people doing drugs for any reason -- and certainly not in favor of making them "safer" to take. But Mike's experience reminds me that there are so many deep-seated issues that need to be dealt with and frankly, only God can reveal and only Jesus can heal. Anything else is a damned lie.

==

"My mother. Did. What she thought. Was right."

Denise spoke very deliberately, as if she was forcing the thought out of her mouth and into the light. Her mother had handed her over to a children’s aid agency when she was a baby, and her point was that she couldn't hold any anger against her. Mind you, her determined way of saying it suggested she had had a long and difficult time to get to that stage.

Ironically, Denise, herself, parted ways with her children. She talks with them from time to time, and then they go about their lives; but there's still a sense that there are still a lot of gaps in their relationship.

Denise is the one who said, "I'd have to kill you all!" when I asked if she'd share her life story for my "In His Image, Too ..." video project, so this was a remarkably candid revelation. She's in her mid-fifties, petite, still attractive with grey threads through her black hair and has definitely “seen it all”. But she refuses to play the victim and blame the myriad people who could be and are regularly blamed for what happens to our Native brothers and sisters. Instead, she’s what I'd call an actionist – someone who just gets in there and does what she can to help. In her case, it’s serving at the women’s centre on the Downtown East Side, helping other women – particularly the young ones – cope with the situation.

“Just show me a Native woman who hasn't sold her body at some point,” she said recently. Someone had had the face to ask her if she'd ever been a prostitute and she was her usual direct self. But with the annual Memorial March for Missing and Murdered Women about to happen, Denise was equally emphatic that it would have to go ahead without her.

“Nothing changes,” she said, meaning the impact of the marches. “But more than that: I'd like to see a march for missing and murdered men. You never hear about that, but that’s what happened to my husband and I wish someone would talk about that.” But almost immediately, she added, “Not me, though: I'm not goin’ on that crusade!”

Denise believes that handing her over to a child protection agency (ironically, the same one that was under the microscope last year in connection with the death of a little boy in Ontario) was not the right thing to do. And yet, it's clear that the experiences Denise went through as a result have led to this calling on her to help others. Who knows how many people she's blessed, just by being there for them?

I would say Denise has a calling of God on her life: I don't know if she'd see it that way, but I'm reminded of Romans 8:28 "All things work together for good, for those who love God and are called according to His purpose."

==

When we went to Australia in December, we walked around Circular Quay in Sydney (I love the Aussies' directness in many things in their language: it's a quay; it's shaped like a circle; therefore, it's named "Circular Quay") and one of its features is "Writers' Walk". This is a series of plaques, in tribute to the writers from Australia and around the world who have, in one way or another, had a connection with Australia. Alongside Nevil Shute, Jack London, Rudyard Kipling and James Michener, there is this plaque from Kath Walker, an Aborigine who took the name Oodgeroo Noonuccal -- the name of her tribe.

I could tell you of heartbreak, hatred blind,

I could tell of crimes that shame mankind,

Of brutal wrong and deeds malign,

Of rape and murder, son of mine.

But I'll tell instead of brave and fine,

When lives of black and white entwine,

And men in brotherhood combine -- 

This would I tell you, son of mine.

Note that this poem was written in 1964, at about the same time Martin Luther King was delivering his speech, in which he said, in part, "I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood ... that ... one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers."

Eloquence from two different parts of the world, at the same time, with the same thought towards brotherhood, equality and, yes, integration. For what it's worth, it's my own prayer for our First Nations in Canada, because the current situation, I believe, is geared to keep them oppressed -- just in a different way. But it's one thing for whitey, here, to talk about integration and brotherhood: hearing it from the oppressed people themselves, gives it credibility.

Dear Tina, Wish you were here.

A scene like this was often played out over the past few years near Gospel Mission.

I'm on one side of Hastings Street, about to cross. A voice calls from the other side.

"Hiya, handsome!"

I do an exaggerated about-face, looking to see whom she's talking to. We cross the street and give each other a big hug right in the middle of the crosswalk. "You're lookin' great!" she says. "So are you, m'dear!" I reply, and we both go off on our ways.

Her name was Tina. Five-foot-nothing, mid-forties, face puffed out by years of drinking the East Side Martini -- Listerine with rubbing alcohol, either separately or mixed (proportions vary according to availability and whatever-gets-you-through-the-day) -- but usually a big smile and a lightly-teasing greeting. One of those people you were always happy to see.

She hung out in Pigeon Park and often came to The Lord's Rain. She rarely came to the Mission upstairs -- at least, not on my night -- but a couple of weeks ago, she and her "boyfriend", Johnny, did come, and if you listen to Amelia's talk about the visit from the Governor-General's Leadership Tour, you'll hear Tina's voice at one point saying, "the Lord works in mysterious ways".

Tina died on Tuesday.

That was it.

Pfft.

Gone.

I found out about it Wednesday morning from one of the fellows who recently started coming to The Lord's Rain. "I lost another of my friends yesterday," he said. Then he started describing her and the realization set in that this wonderful, vibrant person was gone.

Frank said it was likely kidney failure, brought on by those cocktails. He said Johnny had been getting increasingly angry with Tina about her drinking. Johnny is white, 50-something, and a professing Christian. Like Tina, one is always glad to see him.

So apparently, she was just sitting on one of the benches in Pigeon Park and passed out -- for good.

The locals had set up a memorial to her on that bench. Unlike the impromptu roadside memorials that spring up when someone is killed in a crash, with flowers and a cross and maybe a photo, this one has an interesting array of Things To Remember Her By. Bottles, an Edmonton Oilers beach towel, a cookbook, a sheaf of condoms (I'm not kidding), lit candles; there's also a school exercise book and a pen for people to write remembrances. Someone found a photo of Tina in younger days (top left of the picture) that resembles the Tina I knew not in the least (albeit enough that I could say, "so that's what she looked like 20 years ago"). In one way or another, those items meant something to someone in their own relationship with Tina; just as Tina meant something to each of them in their own way.

I hope in some way she knew how much she'd be missed.

It strikes me that part of the "hope" message we try to instill in people is the knowledge that they would be missed if something should happen to them. I think I know what my theme will be for Saturday night's sermon.

I'm reminded very much of Jesus' parable about Lazarus the beggar, who died and was gathered into the arms of Abraham (Luke 16). To others passing through the DTES en route to someplace else, she would have been just another drunk Injun; but there's no doubt in this mind where Tina is now.

===
That's a concept that's difficult for a lot to understand: the idea that you can be accepted by God and still not be acceptable to man. Some years ago, I wanted to share with a minister from Saskatchewan about Rusty, a brother who came to the Mission faithfully, hauling his bent body up the stairs despite having severe curvature of the spine, and shouting "praise the Lord!" with hardly any provocation. (He is still memorialized in our way of singing an old standard "I Been Redeemed By the Blood o'the Lamb!", finishing it by shouting, "yee-hah!", as Rusty did back in the day.) Rusty was stabbed to death after getting verbally involved in a fight between another guy and a woman. I started to relate this to the minister, but when I described Rusty as someone who loved the Lord -- "usually drunk as a skunk, but he loved the Lord". "Well, he couldn't have loved the Lord if he was constantly drunk," the minister snapped.

All-RIGHTY, then! Let's just move on to another topic, shall we?

===

Next to the memorial, a loud discussion was underway on the next bench. One fellow was trying to get more details about Tina's death and another guy kept repeating "that's all I (DELETED) know! Stop (DELETED) asking me what happened! I (DELETED) told you what happened - she died! Right there! On that bench!"

"So what happened?"

The discussion was still going on as I left, with the one who didn't know anything more taking repeated slugs from a large bottle of Listerine. And on it goes.

===
The sad news about Tina overshadowed Richard Johnson's return. He's the fellow I mentioned previously, who spent several weeks in hospital with a serious infection in his spine. He got the expected one-man standing ovation from John Sharp, who tends to take his role as Good Humor Man to wild extremes, and it was some exceptionally good news on a day when we really needed some.

Another element of serving on the Downtown East Side is the communications system. In this day of texting and tweeting, the primary way of finding out about someone on the DTES is still the tried-and-true moccasin telegraph. That may seem like a term with racial overtones, but it's the best description I've seen. It was given traction -- if not actually coined -- by Paul St Pierre, who wrote wonderful short stories about the people in the Chilcotin region, half of whom (at least, in Paul's stories) are white and the other half Indian (Paul wrote the stories in the 50s and 60s, when "Indian" was still an acceptable term)*. It refers to news passing from person to person, at the speed of whenever someone thinks to pass it on. It's also not limited to a particular ethnic group. On the DTES, there's really no other way of keeping tabs on people: they'll show up ... or not ... and if there's an issue, they might mention it to someone who might tell someone else ... you get the picture.

Not the easiest way to minister to people, I can tell you. This was how, for example, it took a week and a half for me to find out that Richard was in hospital: someone thought to mention it to me. Finding out about Tina was also "moccasin telegraph" stuff. I had said hi to Frank, and we exchanged information about our own personal conditions, and then he dropped the news on me. And he didn't even know I knew her.

Similarly, there's the story Amelia recounted about the woman on the Leadership tour who met someone from her reserve in Saskatchewan and everyone had been "wondering about him". Apparently, God plays a role in the moccasin telegraph, putting the right people in the right place at the right time.