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January 3 - February 13, 2021
The pages of this book speak to the damage colonialism can do to Indigenous families, and how, when one’s Indigeneity is stripped away, people can make poor choices informed by pain, loneliness, and heartbreak, choices that see them eventually cast upon the streets, in jail, or wandering with no place to be. I dedicate this book to you. I walk with you. I love you. I know the loneliness and frustration you endure.
The dedication in the beginning sets the tone for the entire book. One must read on to learn about him, his family’s story, and how it was shaped by colonialism for generations.
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Julie
What was I doing here in jail anyway? Why had I put myself in the midst of this filth, this horrible violence? The answer was simple. I did it to save my leg—and my life.
How did Jesse arrive here? In jail on purpose? What a story he has to tell.
Stacey and 14 other people liked this
Berries, Kokum said, knew well their role as life-givers, and we had to honour and respect that. We did that by knowing our role as responsible harvesters, picking only what we needed and leaving the rest for our animal kin so they could feed themselves and their young. That was our pact, she said, and if we followed it, they’d never let us down.
“Picking only what we needed.”
Paul and 14 other people liked this
Mom used to think I was mute, but I could speak fine, I just chose not to. My words belonged to me, they were the only thing I had that were mine, and I didn’t trust anyone enough to share them.
Majenta and 15 other people liked this
The softness of Kokum’s voice whispered in my ears, as the smell of sweet Saskatoon berries filled my nose. The butterflies flew up my body and out the top of my head.
As a whole, Jesse Thistle’s writing style is not overly descriptive, but he brought each of his family members to life with gorgeous imagery. His Kokum (grandmother) was always associated with berries. (See quote above about berry picking).
Dorothy Hermary and 6 other people liked this
I was sorry for him. I thought the same about why my mom and dad had left us. I’d been a bad boy and had asked for food too often. We’d eaten Dad’s secret food too many times, and he’d probably gotten so mad over it that he’d up and left us. I gave Johnny a hug.
A small child tries to make sense of where his parents are.
Linda Farr and 8 other people liked this
Bounding out the door came a beast of a dog. He had brown and black fur with flecks of silver down the sides, and his ears were erect like a German shepherd’s. He looked like a wolf and stood as tall as the middle of my chest. His tail wagged so hard that his bum shot from side to side—even while he charged at us. He leapt at me, I fell backward, and he started licking my face until I couldn’t breathe. I started to cry. But Yorkie kept licking, yelping with glee. He was doing his best to welcome us home.
I’ll never forget sweet Yorkie! There’s a part at the very end (no spoilers) that was so powerful about Yorkie.
Diamond Cowboy and 7 other people liked this
The truth is, when I saw the three eggs tucked into that nest it reminded me of my brothers and me and our home in Saskatchewan. I thought of how much that mother robin loved those eggs and how well she and Brian’s family took care of them, and I got jealous. The eggs had their mother, and my brothers and I didn’t anymore. So I took the eggs. I thought that if I had them, in some way I’d have the same love the eggs had, and that would mean that in some way I’d have a mother’s love again.
This part made me emotional all around.
Jeanne Adamek and 10 other people liked this
But growing up without my father made me tough, like a dried piece of salt cod left out in the sun too long. Grandpappy Peter also taught me to work up on Black Point, fishing in the dory. And I ain’t letting you boys grow up without some of that hardness. Work was the only thing that pulled me and my mother out of the Depression.”
da AL and 4 other people liked this
thought about my parents and all the questions that burned within me growing up, and the resentment that had taken root. I hated them; I hated myself. I hated explaining to other kids where my parents were and why my skin was darker than theirs. I felt torn between wanting to be Indian and wanting to hide in my lie—kind
Majenta and 6 other people liked this
drank more than they could Jumped higher Ran faster But nobody told me That Indians aren’t made in Hollywood And we were never meant to be the good guys
Abhishek Borkar and 5 other people liked this
Uncle Ron, though, walked right up to him and put a twenty in his cup. The man smiled a toothy smile and said thank you, but Uncle Ron just stared at him. The man looked at him, then over at me. I could tell he was trying to assess what was going on, but then Uncle Ron said, “Don’t mention it, brother.” Before we rounded the corner to where we were parked, Uncle Ron turned back, but the homeless man was gone. “I always think,” he said, “that it could be Sonny.”
Another part that made me emotional.
Majenta and 6 other people liked this
“I can’t go home with a report card like this. You don’t know what will happen,” I couldn’t feel my face but I was crying. “It’s not his fault. He was raised that way.” Mrs. R. didn’t say anything, just sat there, rubbing my back. I couldn’t hear the clock anymore, just Mrs. R.’s soft breath and the sound of a robin singing outside.
This showed how a young Jesse had come to understand his grandfather and how his own upbringing had hardened him. And also the kindness of a teacher.
Michael McLellan and 8 other people liked this
She was like a patrol helicopter looking for a bank robber. Josh told me it was because she was scared—of what I don’t know. Wherever we were with Mom, Grandma was close by, pacing, silent, breathing heavy. She didn’t even read any of her Harlequin novels, which was odd considering she did that obsessively any other time. Josh
da AL and 4 other people liked this
“Sometimes life just tears people from one another. That happened with my family when I was young.”
Fergus, Quondam Happy Face and 6 other people liked this
I never realized how important my smile was until then—the loss seemed to suck the joy out of interacting with anyone, more than even the starving situation did. I just couldn’t smile without feeling horrible about my already dishevelled appearance. I stopped smiling altogether.
Dana and 3 other people liked this
A week after, the pinkish purple imprint of the gun muzzle, the size and shape of a Life Savers, remained engraved between my eyes. I never did another run with Marko again.
Dana and 4 other people liked this
That was supposed to be the plan: get arrested and go to jail, so I’d get taken care of, so my foot could be fixed, and so my life would be saved. I was desperate. I didn’t know what else to do anymore. I felt as though I had nowhere else to go, nowhere else to turn.
The part that was foreshadowed above. Jesse has no where to go.
Majenta and 4 other people liked this
I SAW A GUY ON our range at the sally port talking with an older man in a red-and-grey uniform. The geezer wasn’t stiff like the guards. He had a peaceful presence about him, but still a hardness about his body language, like he’d been one of us, like he’d done time in the past. “Who is that?” I asked my cellmate. “That’s the chaplain.”
Dana and 4 other people liked this
I DIDN’T GET IT RIGHT the first time in rehab. No one ever does.
And that’s ok because he never gave up.
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“You were like a phantom,” she said. “I almost caught up to you a couple times, but always just missed you. I’m sorry life has been this way for you. I’m sorry I wasn’t there.”
A rift in a family may finally be healed.
Dana and 3 other people liked this
The rest of our conversation melted into a drizzle of emotions that fogged my heart in the nicest way. Like a silent summer rain that lightly quenches the prairie after a long drought, or the cloud of droplets that kicks up at the bottom of a waterfall, delicately misting your face. Refreshing and warm, like I’d rediscovered some fragment of home, some lost piece of myself. It filled me up.
When Jesse finds love ... and home.
Fergus, Quondam Happy Face and 5 other people liked this
I remembered my first day of kindergarten, right before I met Leeroy. I cried the whole way and didn’t want to go in. I was so afraid to let go of Grandma and go to the teacher until Grandma knelt down, looked me right in the eye, and said, “Go on, Jesse, it’s okay. Grandma will be here at the end of the day. I promise.” She smelled like old cigarettes and perfume as she pushed me toward the teacher. It was that same push she was giving me now. A push that said, “Go on, make your way in the world. Make me proud.”
This made me ugly cry.
Jesse’s grandparents reminded me of my own.
Paul and 4 other people liked this
We Thistle men never learned how to express ourselves. We were raised to be tough and unemotional, with the thickness of our calluses and fists the only way we were ever allowed to show how we felt—lessons that went way back to Grandpa’s horrible boyhood in Cape Breton—lessons my dad, no doubt, struggled with, too.
Understanding for his dad.
Dana and 2 other people liked this
I never felt so sorry for him in all my life—I knew he didn’t mean it. I’d used anger myself to hide from emotions I couldn’t handle.
So powerful here when he made this connection. And I cried.
Diamond Cowboy and 3 other people liked this
“That’s why I was always hard on you. To make you strong. Like my granddaddy did with me. That was the only way to protect you.
Majenta and 3 other people liked this
“I understand why you throw fits,” she said. “I would, too, after years of having no control over anything.” She then said she’d always be there to help me figure out my emotions, even if it was an ugly process.
Lucie’s love.
Paul and 3 other people liked this
The smell of lard and my kokum cooking bannock washed over me. I heard kokum singing to the hornets and mosquitoes, lulling them away, as we picked berries. The sweet sound of the Morrissette reels my mushoom played throbbed in my ears, the flicker of moonbeams on his vest danced across my eyes. The faint scent of smoke from my kokum’s hearth wafted across the air. I saw my mushoom whittling a toy sword. I remembered them. I remembered my mother’s people. I remembered who I was.
Beautiful imagery of his kokum and mushoom and finding himself in the process.
Majenta and 4 other people liked this
The city hall ceremony had been just a legal formality; the real wedding happened while the two of us were alone in the woods, by the lakeshore, in the misty sunrise. We submerged our hands in the water and the bond was sealed. In that moment of love, continents joined and the gaping maw within me closed, silent and forever. Creator and Luna were our only witnesses. The water ceremony was the way I imagine my ancestors would have married. It was the best wedding we could have asked for.
Gorgeous- “the gaping maw with me closed.”
Dorothy Hermary and 6 other people liked this
Those sixteen letters and the black prison Bible are all I have of my dad—that, and the world of resentments I had to sort through on the streets, then in rehab. But it’s more than I ever had, and I was grateful for the journey back to him, even if the old shoebox, some thirty-four years later, was as close as we’d ever get to being father and son.
I cried through this entire section, and I’m so grateful Jesse had that box and the letters.
“It’s your grandmother’s wedding ring—fifty-seven years of love on there—she’d want Lucie to have it, I’m sure.” I like to think Aunt Sherry was right, and that Grandma sent Lucie to take care of me—she’s the only woman strong enough to watch over Grandma’s wayward, rebellious grandson.
I like to believe people are sent to us for different reasons. I loved this part so much.
Leslie and 5 other people liked this
The pain also keeps me sober. It reminds me what it was like years ago when addiction and homelessness almost did me in. For that, and those harsh reminders, I am thankful.
How powerful is this?!
Majenta and 3 other people liked this
The truth is, I don’t know, but what I do know is that my mangled foot and the pain it brings changed everything. It almost destroyed me, but somehow I survived; it forced me to do something unthinkable to save my life, it forced me to challenge and push myself when I was utterly defeated; it taught me to trust my body, myself, and my wife; and it forces me every day to remember what happened when I gave up and blamed the world for my problems and expected something for nothing.
More about the pain and how it drives him.
Majenta and 3 other people liked this
I explored homelessness in a way that would escape them. They could only talk and write about it; I took a walk a stone’s throw from my hotel room where I’d lived it. And I’d said goodbye.
A full circle.
Dana and 2 other people liked this
at night in between slumber and consciousness i sleepwalk. my soul not yet aware that my wanderings are over and I have a home.
Jesse found home. Gosh, I love this book!
Judith and 15 other people liked this
