THE INTERVIEWER: Okay, we’ll start by asking you to say and spell your name for us, please.
LUCILLE MATTESS : Lucille Mattess ; Lucille Mattess.
I’m from the Tl,azten Nation. It’s in the area northwest of Prince George. I’m from a small community called Binchekeyoh.
Q. Est-ce en Saskatchewan?
R. Non. Colombie-Britannique.
Q. Oh. Je pensais au Prince Albert. Prince George.
Vous êtes venu un chemin.
Lucille, à quel pensionnat es-tu allé?
R. Je suis allé au pensionnat indien Lejac à Fraser Lake. C'était entre Fort Fraser et le lac Fraser.
Q. Vous venez de fréquenter une école ou y en avait-il une autre ?
R. Oui, une seule école. J'y suis resté 8 ans environ.
Q. Quel âge aviez-vous lorsque vous avez commencé?
A. I would say maybe about 5 or 6 years old. I’m really unsure of the date. My last attendance was in 1969.
Q. Alors, comment se fait-il que vous ayez dû aller au pensionnat?
A. I’m really not too sure how it came about. I just knew that one day I was awakened in a really big room and it seemed like I was asleep for a long time and then I came to. I was surrounded by toys and other younger kids sitting at desks and it was called the Baby Class. I remember waking up, like waking up from darkness or something. I remember that.
I don’t remember seeing being removed by the Priests or the Nuns. I don’t remember that.
Q. Aviez-vous d'autres frères et sœurs avec vous ?
R. Oui. J'avais ma sœur aînée Yvonne, elle était là. Et mon frère aîné Ronnie. Il était là. Et après moi j'ai eu ma sœur cadette Marian, mon frère Max, mon frère Teddy et la dernière à y assister était ma sœur Madeleine.
Q. Quels sont vos premiers souvenirs du pensionnat?
A. Mes premiers souvenirs ?
Une chose que je sais, c'est le travail acharné que nous avons dû faire, le travail acharné et l'alignement. Le style de vie structuré était ce dont je me souviens beaucoup, en m'assurant que vous vous leviez tôt le matin. Ils taperaient dans leurs mains pour vous réveiller. Vous deviez finir juste à temps avant la prochaine chose qui se passait, comme aller déjeuner. Et après le petit-déjeuner, vous allez à une certaine heure après le petit-déjeuner, vous allez directement à vos tâches, en faisant vos tâches. Une corvée peut être de nettoyer les toilettes de la salle de bain et les sols, de balayer les sols. C'était une structure quotidienne. Ensuite, vous deviez aller vous rhabiller pour votre classe. Salles de classe. Et après un certain nombre d'heures, vous avez fait une pause.
Il s'agissait de s'aligner, de s'habiller, d'aller aux toilettes à une certaine heure. C'était juste tout structuré. Je ne me souviens jamais avoir pris mes propres décisions. C'était un peu comme si nous étions programmés.
Q. Quelle était votre relation avec vos frères et sœurs pendant que vous étiez là-bas ?
A. Ma relation avec mes frères et sœurs était que nous étions séparés. Ma sœur aînée était toujours en avance sur moi. Je serais donc dans le dortoir supérieur, le petit dortoir. Le dortoir élevé serait appelé petit dortoir. Elle était en Intermédiaire, et quand je suis passé en Intermédiaire, elle était en Senior. Mes frères, je ne les ai jamais vus et ils étaient séparés aussi. Comme là aussi, le plus âgé était toujours devant le plus jeune. Nous étions donc toujours séparés. Je n'ai jamais eu de contact avec eux. De l'autre côté du couloir, j'essayais de les repérer ou ils essayaient de nous repérer. Mais vous ne saviez jamais ce qui se passait avec eux ou ce qu'ils faisaient.
Nous ne serions jamais avec nos frères et sœurs plus jeunes parce qu'ils seraient dans leurs propres activités. Ma sœur aînée faisait ses propres activités, donc il n'y avait pas de lien. Il n'y avait aucun lien émotionnel ou aucune sorte de relation qui maintiendrait ce lien.
Q. Êtes-vous rentré chez vous pendant les vacances d'été ? Avez-vous été autorisé à rentrer chez vous ?
A. We went home at Christmas time and we went home in the summer time. I think we stayed home. We started by the beginning of September and from the end of June we went home. So we had 2 months break there. And at Christmas time it was something like ten days. At those times it was very —
Christmas time wasn’t a very good experience because there was so much dysfunction, so much alcohol happening in the community.
En été, c'était une très bonne expérience quand nous sommes rentrés à la maison. Nous retournerions par voie d'eau à nos terrains de chasse. Nous irions dans une autre direction vers nos terrains de chasse.
Moi, avant d'être élevé dans le milieu des pensionnats, j'ai été élevé dans le désert, dans les montagnes et j'ai été élevé parfois avec mes parents. C'était à chaque fois un endroit différent, une famille différente. J'étais parfois avec mes parents et ma tante dans les montagnes, comme Manson Creek, Wolverine, dans cette région, ou au pensionnat. Mais les fois où j'étais à la maison avec mes parents c'était bien. C'était bien parce que mon père est un très bon fournisseur. Il fournit très bien. Ma mère était une très bonne mère. Elle s'est assurée que tous nos besoins étaient satisfaits et que nous étions propres et que la maison était vraiment impeccable.
My mom is a product of Residential School, and my dad. But there was never that connection, that bond. We never really had these emotional ties. It seemed just by body language. We’re really good at picking up body languages. If you see my dad doing a certain thing or the expression of his body or his facial expression, you know you’re in the wrong so you have to try —
It’s like a dance. It was like that with my mom, too. If her needs weren’t met she would start doing this dance and we would follow and start doing this dance. You pick up, in that area, your senses, your observations. You’re really keen at that.
I lived with my aunt up in the mountains. And I loved the wilderness. I really loved the wilderness because I lived in the mountains. I was the only child living on this mountain with my aunt and her partner. It was comfortable because I was by myself. I didn’t have to relate to my aunt or to my uncle. I was kind of like a silent person. I just had to watch their body language and perform the way I’m supposed to perform. I knew I could do whatever and wander around in the bush without fear.
I remember that. I didn’t fear anything when I was growing up in the bush. I didn’t fear anything. It was after I went to Residential School I started having a lot of fears. I started fearing —
I had a lot of fears in my spiritual area. In our culture we never had Halloween or the Catholic beliefs, the values that were put upon us. We didn’t have that. Halloween was —
When we went to Residential School we were really small and they would dress up as devils or witches and they put a lot of fear into me, all the talk about the devil and heaven and hell. That put a lot of fear where I feared God and I feared going to hell. When that fear is there, it’s a block to my growth.
It was after those fears that I came to fear a lot of things at home. I came to fear what was going on around me. They made you feel you were not good enough, not acceptable to God, especially when as a child you saw the Nuns strapping the little ones that came in after me, they were being strapped because they were talking in their language, the Carrier language, they were talking their language and they were strapping them because they were telling these kids that this was a devilish babbling. I think that’s where, from the time they took me to the awakening in that Baby Class, I think that’s where I went into some kind of sleep. I went into the back of my mind so I don’t remember. I think it had a lot to do with that first engagement with the Nuns.
The spirituality part of it, today I’ve really come to believe in a different god of my understanding. I believe in the Creator and that has only happened in the last 5 years. Because after all that teaching, it’s like you’re dammed if you do and you’re dammed it you don’t, eh, the teaching of heaven and hell and God and the devil. I really suffered a lot of psychological problems.
Q. When did things change for you? You were saying in the last 5 years —
Y avait-il quelque chose ?
A. In 1984 that’s when I became aware that my symptoms were from Residential School. I suffered from anxiety attacks. I suffered from fears. I suffered —
J'ai abusé des médicaments d'ordonnance et de l'alcool. Les médicaments sur ordonnance étaient mon numéro un. Somnifères et Valiums le jour et somnifères la nuit. Je l'ai utilisé pendant 2 ans avant 1984 parce qu'avant, j'avais consommé de l'alcool dès l'âge de douze ans, ce qui était ma première expérience avec l'alcool. Mais après cela, j'ai eu une période de 4 ans d'abstinence à cause d'autres circonstances.
Ensuite, je me suis mis directement à l'alcool à dix-sept ans parce que c'était normal. Vous voyez des gens le faire autour de vous. Vous avez grandi dans cet environnement et c'était dans la communauté. C'était assez dysfonctionnel de toute façon.
In 1984 a group of people from the Nechako Treatment Centre came into our community and brought in the mobile treatment. I was awakened at the time. I woke up to as a woman I had rights. As a woman I had a right to say “No”. I had emotions that could be expressed. Because I didn’t have any kind of emotions except anger. Anger was my number one only emotion I ever felt, and loneliness, a deep-rooted loneliness. But I never expressed it. I never let people know about it, which led me to depression. So I suffered from depression, loneliness and rage. I suffered from those, too.
I came to —
My first 2 children I wasn’t able to look after them because I didn’t really know how due to alcoholism. I had my first daughter when I was nineteen years old. It was a disastrous relationship because I was drinking and her father died at a house party. So she was only 2 months old when I went into alcoholism. I used alcohol after that and my mom took my daughter, which I was really grateful for because I still had my mom and dad.
Afterwards I went into another relationship where I was to be married. He wasn’t an Aboriginal and my grandmother put a stop to that because she wanted me to marry a Status person. So I had to leave that relationship and then I married a First Nations person from around my community. I had 3 children out of that relationship. So I had 5 children.
My first son out of that third relationship was 4 years old. We went to a church. I’ll always remember this. I used Christianity to make myself feel better about myself, that I belonged somewhere. I prayed to God that I had a saving God that would save me. We were at this New Year’s function. It was a family environment and I and my husband were already sober for ten years because I didn’t want to raise my children in an alcoholic environment so I quit drinking.
I think he was maybe about 6. We had to write a little note stating what is it that we want to change for the New Year. My son —
We were talking about it and everybody was asking him: “What did you put?” He said, “Mom, I put down that this anger would leave our home.” That was the hardest thing that I heard from him because I knew my anger and I knew my husband’s anger because he was a product of Residential School, too. It woke me up, wanting to have a better life for them, for my children.
J'ai commencé à travailler avec moi-même et avec un groupe de femmes qui nous aident, et avec Nechako People qui a travaillé avec nous. Nous avions un groupe tous les mois après notre traitement mobile. Nous partagerions et nous en sommes venus à faire confiance à ces personnes pour partager nos histoires avec elles sur ce qui s'est passé et ce que c'était que d'être élevé dans un environnement d'abus sexuels et physiques et de spiritualité déformée, et de changer notre propre système de croyances.
A big part of it was that I suffered from passed on grief from my grandmother, because as I child I remember my grandmother —
I must have been about 3 years old. We lived in a small family community on the outskirts of Fort St. James. She was behind the house. Behind the house they were scraping moose hides and I just happened to be in the house. I ran out because I heard my grandmother wailing. The wailing was coming from her stomach, just coming out of her mouth and she had the drum. She was drumming and she was saying in our language, she was crying, she said she was calling her mom and her dad, she was calling her ancestors and she was telling them, like tears were coming out of her eyes and she said, “I’ve become really poor now, I have nowhere to go, I don’t have my freedom any more to wander to the hunting grounds to where I need to go, I don’t have any food and our children and our grandchildren are gone.” I remember being the only child there. She was singing.
J'avais toujours l'habitude de pleurer quand j'entendais les gens tambouriner parce que tout d'un coup, ce lourd fardeau me pesait quand je les entendais tambouriner. Cela m'a amené à ma grand-mère et je pouvais juste sentir sa perte. Je n'ai jamais pu comprendre pourquoi j'ai toujours ressenti cette perte, ce sentiment perdu, ce sentiment de solitude.
Un jour, l'équipe nous a parlé de l'histoire du pensionnat. Là, je me suis de nouveau réveillé que le pensionnat avait un impact profond sur mon bien-être, que je souffrais des débris des politiques gouvernementales et que ma grand-mère, ma mère et mon père souffraient des pertes de la culture. Cela a joué un grand rôle dans ma spiritualité et mon moi physique et mon moi émotionnel et ma vie mentale et sociale. Je n'ai jamais pu, après le pensionnat, fonctionner parce que j'avais besoin d'être contrôlé. J'avais besoin de structure.
I tried going to high school and I only lasted 2 weeks because I felt that I didn’t belong and I couldn’t handle the racism because the racism was from the Non-Aboriginal people and from the Aboriginal students who were raised in the White community and I didn’t feel I belonged there. I didn’t feel I belonged at home because I was now talking English and my grandmother got mad at me for talking English and I didn’t like some of the traditional food that she would provide. She would get mad at us and get after us for that.
I remember one time my auntie who lived next door was cooking yeast bread and bannock and I came to the door. She was telling me, “Lucy, do you want bannock or yeast bread?” I told her, “No, I want White man bread.” She grabbed the broom and she chased me back down the street. (Laughter) I always remembered that. Those are the things I had to come back to.
I was ashamed to be an Indian. I was very ashamed to be an Indian. I didn’t want to acknowledge being an Indian. The ten years I was sober with my children I remember telling them, “You see those drunken Indians on the streets over there, that’s how you’re going to become if you don’t listen and if you start drinking.” That was a harsh judgment on them, on the street people, because after my ten years of sobriety and my kids were all teenagers, twelve and thirteen years old wanting to do their own thing, I started getting sick. I was diagnosed with Lupus. That was another devastating incident I couldn’t cope with so I went back to alcohol for 5 years. That was 8 years ago. I’ve been clean now for 8 years. I’ve been clean.
Since 1984 until today I’ve worked. I’ve really done a lot of personal growth around myself, becoming aware of myself, becoming aware of my own beliefs and my values and retrieving my grandmothers’ and my ancestors’ beliefs and their values, accepting myself for who I am and what I am. I’m making new directions to where I want to go. What do I want to do with the rest of my life? And just building a new relationship with my children and maintaining a relationship with my grandchildren, because my children suffered a lot from the symptoms of Residential School that I had.
Q. Avez-vous déjà partagé votre histoire avec vos enfants ?
A. I’ve told them that I went to Residential School. I’ve told them how hard it has been but I have never really given them the details of what it was like, the emotional aspect of what it was like for me, the teachings of it all.
I didn’t get here on my own. I got here with other people who helped me through this process, through this healing process. I’ve come to a place where I have accepted what has happened. It’s history and I can go back into history and take the things that I need to help me to walk the rest of my path. I can use it to be victimized or use it to stay stuck,
or —
I’ve come to a place of sharing my story with other people and sharing my stories with the doctors and nurses and social workers that I work with, I share my story with them. I share it to make sure the cultural aspect is in my work environment where we serve our First Nations people. I maintain that relationship where it needs to be. They need to know what happened, why we’re like this today, why they see so much destruction of First Nations people, understanding it, letting them know, “yes, this is what happened”.
Our health environment is always —
First Nations people their lives have always been —
— End of Part 1
…can stand up for myself and I can stand up for my People. I didn’t get here just overnight. It took a long time, since 1984, to today. It’s a long journey, a long healing journey.
Maintenant, je travaille comme travailleuse de soutien aux Autochtones dans un environnement médical dans une clinique où j'entretiens une relation avec les fournisseurs de services et avec les patients. Je fais beaucoup de plaidoyer pour nos patients. Je fais beaucoup de travail communautaire pour ma communauté.
I’m letting go of my children. Instead of trying to direct their lives and telling them what to do, I’m letting them go to make their own choices. The only thing I can ever be to them is an example, that there’s a better way, a better life, and they need to find their own path. That’s the hardest part because prior to that I was really enmeshed with my kids. I wanted to protect my children from every possible pain that society can do to them. That’s how I lived, protecting them from their own responsibilities and their own actions. It’s hard.
I’m a grandmother. I have 5 children and I’m a grandmother of 9.
Q. Quand vous parlez du chagrin que vous avez ressenti, le chagrin transmis, que faites-vous avec cela ? Avez-vous encore ça ?
R. J'ai beaucoup pleuré. Pleurer fait partie de la guérison. J'ai beaucoup partagé. Je suis allé à un programme de traitement. J'ai suivi au moins 2 ou 3 programmes de traitement, des programmes de suivi avec les Centres de traitement Nechako. On parle beaucoup de deuil. En 2005, j'ai également obtenu mon diplôme en travail social, dont une partie était le deuil et la perte. J'ai dû revenir en arrière et écrire sur les pertes de ma propre vie. Je devais partager cela avec mon instructeur. Cela a pris une année entière, en remontant directement à votre enfance, en reconnaissant votre première perte et en ressentant ces sentiments et en l'acceptant, et comment pouvez-vous vous aider à accepter que cela s'est produit. Et aller étape par étape, une sorte de ligne du temps, parcourir votre vie et traverser toutes les expériences de perte, la perte de vous-même et ne pas vous reconnaître et la perte de votre enfance, la perte de votre sexualité . Même les décès au cours de votre vie ont un impact important, ainsi que la perte de l'environnement des pensionnats.
That’s where all my ties were. One day as an adult you drive by and you see the Residential School building. The next ten years you drive by you forget all about this and you drive by and there’s no building there because this is where you grew up. This is where you maintained some connection with other children, with other peers. That was a big loss, too.
Because what I really wanted to do was I wanted to go back to that building and I wanted to acknowledge the experiences that I went through there, the experiences of the many times when you were trying to look for warmth, the many times when you wanted to look for love —
Je me souviens d'être allé contre le mur de ciment et le soleil rayonnait sur ce mur et vous avez senti la chaleur sur ce mur. Vous vous êtes juste collé à ce mur et avez continué à embrasser ce mur avec votre ventre et à essayer de sentir la chaleur et juste à essayer de ressentir du confort.
— Speaker overcome with emotion
We were basically never nurtured. We were emotionally deprived by invalidating our emotions. And if you did cry nobody acknowledged it. Nobody came over to ask, “What is wrong, Lucy?” You just had to lay in your bed at night and just cry. The loneliness and the pain and the anger would just go away. You just would have to feel that.
Nous nous sommes battus entre nous. Nous devions créer, il semblait qu'en nous-mêmes, nous devions créer le chaos pour nous sentir reconnus, pour connaître notre présence. Je me souviens que nous nous battions entre nous. On créait des petits gangs, comme 3 ici et 3 là et on se battait. Après avoir eu ce très gros combat, c'était comme si nous avions eu cette étape de lune de miel, nous nous sommes tous remis ensemble. C'était un cycle. Chaque saison, nous l'avons fait. Je m'en souviens tellement bien.
I remember many times I ran away from Lejac Residential School. I ran away at least 4 times. The very first time I tried to run away I was eleven or twelve years old. I told somebody that there’s a whole bunch of us going to run away. Then we started taking off at a certain time, at supper time, and they caught us up. They cut our hair in the back, like they cut it underneath all over to make it look really ugly. We already felt ugly anyways.
Then the second time I tried to run away I went in the opposite direction. I made it as far as —
Me and Betty Alexander, I think we made it as far as Hazelton. And then the third time I was the guide. I was the bush guide! There were 5 of us. We decided to run away. I think I was twelve or thirteen, somewhere around there. We started out in the evening time. I made them follow the tracks and I knew there was a track because there was a bridge over those tracks and I told them, “Once you hear noises or you hear a vehicle, I want you to stay in the bushes.” So I made them stay in the bush for 2 hours and lay there being really quiet until they left because those were the Senior boys looking for us. I walked them through the bushes from those tracks right to Vanderhoof. We came out in Vanderhoof through the bushes and it was just pitch black, and then we made it right to our community, my family community, T’achet (ph.). We made it right to there. We got 2 vehicle rides, so that was good. But after about 2 weeks enjoying the freedom my mom and dad finally found out that I was missing from Lejac and so they looked for me and picked me up.
September started and so I was sent back to Lejac. I told them that I’m never ever going to run away from Lejac again. I’m going to demand that I be released from this prison, I and my friend, and she’s my colleague today, Nancy Thom (sp?), we disrupted the whole school for 2 months, we disrupted the whole school demanding to go home.
First there were about 3 or 4 of us who were going to enforce this demand but it ended up just being me and Nancy demanding it. We stole alcohol. We got drunk. People couldn’t do anything. We had to go to bed early. We had to be watched where we went. We were not allowed to have dances. We were not allowed to go to the movies. It wasn’t just us, but the whole school, even the boys’ side.
Finalement, les gens allaient voir les prêtres et leur disaient qu'ils voulaient rentrer chez eux. Alors ils nous ont finalement dit qu'ils nous ramèneraient à la maison.
Q. How did you feel when you knew you didn’t have to go back there?
A. I felt relieved. But there was a sadness there, too, a sadness of leaving. Then I found out that I didn’t belong in the outside world. I didn’t belong there. It was like a big piece of a puzzle trying to find your own self, a big piece of the puzzle about yourself, picking up pieces and taking pieces out and putting it together.
Q. Pourquoi pensez-vous qu'il est important pour vous de partager votre histoire ?
A. For me why it’s important is it’s acknowledgement, an acknowledgement of my pain. I’m expressing myself and I have the freedom to share my story, what happened to me, what it’s like to be raised up in a confined area, an environment, what it’s like to pass that threshold to the other side where society is, that it’s okay to pass that threshold and it’s okay that you’re part of —
You’re human. I guess that’s what I’m saying. You’re human and you’re part of society and that you belong. You have the right to be here as much as any other race. And to let the government know what it’s like to suffer, what it’s like to be separated from your parents, what it’s like to be separated from your siblings, from your community, what it’s like to be disconnected from yourself, what it’s like to be disconnected from the earth, from the Elders and from the community.
Because that’s the foundation of our ancestors. That’s my foundation, the Aboriginal people. We need to be connected to ourselves, to the earth, to our Elders, to the animals and to the environment. Because without it we are coming into a place where now we’re accepting the individualized culture, that it’s okay to live alone and leave your family back there. But it doesn’t work like that. You need that connection.
Today I think service providers and professional people and Non-Aboriginal people need to know the history of the Aboriginal people and what happened to them. Governments need to know those things because as a service provider myself I am working with the debris of the government policies, the psycho-social problems of our people. That’s the suffering we see today. They need to know.
Mon seul argument aujourd'hui est que les enfants sont toujours retirés de nos communautés. Des enfants, des nouveau-nés, sont retirés à leur mère directement à l'hôpital. Il existe encore des politiques gouvernementales qui oppriment encore l'unité familiale. Cela continue encore aujourd'hui. Ce qui doit arriver, c'est qu'ils doivent comprendre qu'ils doivent nous rendre notre responsabilité de maintenir notre famille, de maintenir nos croyances et nos valeurs. Qu'est-ce que ça fait de vivre en famille ? Qu'est-ce que ça fait de fonctionner en famille?
We suffer from disconnection and the children that are taken away today —
It’s about 4 generations of one family I’ve seen that were removed. From the beginning of Residential School their parents were taken away as children, and those parents, their children were taken away by the Welfare system, and those children, their grandchildren are being taken away. I’ve seen 4 generations of children being removed.
It is still happening today and that’s my argument that I want that changed. That’s why I want to tell my story, in order for my children to live to be part of the mainstream, to not be dependent on government. To be independent. To find work. The normal way of living. To set your goals and to have goals and to reach for those goals, but not stay stuck and have the government look after you because that’s what it is today. The majority of our People live on income assistance because there is no economics in our community. There’s nothing. We live in poverty.
The poverty that they say I was raised up in, having no White man food, but when I was raised up I didn’t see it as poverty. The holes in my pants, I didn’t see it as poverty. I was a rich kid I would say because I had my grandparents. They are the ones that raised me up. I had the food off the land and I was taught those skills how to gather food and to prepare food.
But today it’s different. We depend on government hand-outs and we don’t see those skills to go out and be independent and things like that. That’s why I want to share my story.
There is a way out. There is a way out of this structured lifestyle to a freedom, your own freedom inside of you. You don’t need to be a victim of these policies. You can go beyond.
For me I needed to let go of the past. I needed to let go and leave it there and look to the future, what is in the future for me, what is in the future for my children, what do they need from me. For example, I was diagnosed with Lupus. I have Lupus. I was diagnosed in 1991 with Lupus. I was a hard working person. I’ve always been a hard working person. That’s what my parents taught me and that’s one of the good things about Residential School. I was taught to read and write and to work hard to achieve something.
I fostered children. I fund raised for my community so our children could have the necessary things they need for our community. When I wasn’t able to do all that anymore when I got sick, that was another loss. I had to go through that. I went into a depression for 2 years. Then I went back to alcohol for 5 years. But I remembered the one thing that came back to me was my grandfather’s words. Those words were, “Lucy, don’t ever lay down for sickness, because if you lay down for sickness it’s going to take over your body and you’re no good after that.” I took that and I played that to myself so I had to get out of this oppression. I had to get out of this destructive way of lifestyle and remembering those words.
By grasping that and being transformed by the renewing of the mind, start thinking positive about yourself, about the environment, about another person because before I wasn’t positive. I wasn’t positive about myself. I always thought I was worthless. I always thought I was inadequate and I judged other people harshly and things like that.
Those are the tools that I have to use. Think differently about things because there are different ways of thinking; my grandfather’s values.
Q. I’m glad you came to share your story.
A. I’m glad, too. I hope it was okay.
Q. Merci beaucoup. Très bon.
— End of Interview