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Life On the Streets: Part One

This is part of an ongoing series of stories and columns I wrote for newspapers across Canada. I am grateful to Postmedia, and the Ottawa Citizen, for permission to reprint the following articles which ran March 18, 2002. 








LIFE ON THE STREETS: Earlier this year, Nick Gagnier, an Ottawa teen, left home after a fight with his mother. What he learned while living on the street has left him wiser -- and stronger. Meanwhile, his mother, Rose Simpson, experienced the heartache of a parent whose child has left.

By Nick Gagnier

What do you see in a homeless person? Do you see a low-life, huddled against a downtown building, panhandling for money to buy his supper? Or do you recognize a human being underneath the filthy hair and clothes?
Society tends to see the first image. But personally after spending a week with no place to call home, I have warmed up to the homeless.
I really should start from the beginning. I spent five hectic years living with my father and his wife in Montreal. In time, I went off to boarding school in Barrie, Ontario, for eight months. In June, I moved to Ottawa to live with my mom.
The summer was uneventful. I had a girlfriend, so I spent almost every day at her place, Andy family hardly saw me. This began what would be constant fighting between my mom and me. When she found out I had been smoking for almost four years, we became even more distanced.
Within four days of school starting, I found myself skipping classes constantly. I had a new girlfriend, and became so attached to a group of friends that I was rarely home at all, except to sleep. There was no way my mother would know what was going on in my mind, because I was never there. By the third week of school, she decided to take me to the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario after I told her I was having suicidal thoughts.
In October, I was home a bit more but no therapy of any sort could be arranged. I started smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. My girlfriend and I fought constantly. I drank whenever I got the chance. Everything was building up for a crash.
At the beginning of November, my girlfriend and I broke up. It hit me hard, and the careful stack of problems that had been piling up came crashing down. Back at CHEO, I went after a suicide attempt; I was caught "cutting my wrists" in class at Brookfield High School.
CHEO did the best thing it could have done: My file landed at the Youth Services Bureau. Jacques, my new social worker at YSB, set up an appointment for my mom and me. We met him in early December, where it was decided that I should drop my courses at Brookfield and wait for an opening at alternative school.
I smoked more as the days passed, and my need for cigarettes began to annoy my mother. Christmas break came, and at a time where family is meant to be together, I spent the break with my friends.
My brother and sister went back to school, and I spent my time sleeping at home waiting for friends to phone. I spent my nights at the computer writing songs for my band, a talent I'd discovered three years ago. At times, I thought songwriting was all I was good for, and I became depressed. I thought the best way to fix myself would be to go back to Brookfield and try to cut down on my smoking, if not quit altogether.  I managed to register at school but the problem was that it wouldn't start for two weeks. The smoking was out of control, and I managed to go from a pack a day to a pack and a half. The girlfriend situation wasn't any better; in a month I went through three of them.
As for the situation with my mom, sometimes I would think she didn't care what I was trying to do. I started spending more time out with my friends again. I would leave late at night, and not come home for a day, maybe two, at a time. The only person who constantly heard from me was Jacques. He had become my life support, the only person who could help me.
I went back to school at the beginning of February, and again I would go to my friends houses after school. I wrote the darkest lyrics I ever heard. I smoked more, and I got another girlfriend who lasted a week.
Then a new kind of crash came -- in the relationship between me and my mom.
I went out one night to get a cigarette from my best friend Tiffany, saying I'd be home later. Of course, I wasn't home on time; in fact, I came home an hour and a half late. My mom snapped when I walked in. She yelled and then went all quiet. I started yelling at her. Then she freaked out, and the screaming started. I told her I was leaving, and then the words came, the words that struck my heart, and opened a mine of hate and anger. "If you leave, don't come back."
That was it. I opened the patio door, ran outside and jumped the gate, leaving the world of safety and warmth behind. I started back toward Tiffany's.
That night I spent wondering what would happen next. Where would I go? What would I be? My dreams of comfort vanished before my eyes. Within eight months, I had become an outcast, a stranger, even to myself.
I spent the next day finding a place to spend the night and I landed at another friend, Sarah's, where I spent two nights. I called Jacques, who told me to keep going to school and set up an appointment for two days later. I called my mom, and dispite her offer to let me come back home, I declined. That night, I snuck into my home to gather my things.
Two days later, I met with Jacques. He arranged for me to stay at the Salvation Army two blocks away. Reluctantly, I agreed.
It didn't look so bad when I first got there. It was certainly better than going from place to place every night. But when Jacques was leaving, I pictured myself as a four-year-old on my stomach hanging onto his ankles and pleading for him not to go. I felt like a toddler in a world only grownups were meant to see.
I couldn't wait to get settled in my surroundings, then go out. Go somewhere you feel safe, I told myself. A friend's house came to mind.
Outside, I saw the old aged faces of wisdom, those who had been here for months and even years. They looked at me from behind their cigarettes, studying the newcomer to their world. Their haunted eyes turned me inside out, and I was scared. In time, I shuddered, this is what I would become. One of them.
I went to Tiffany's, and when I returned that night, the building lurked in the darkness, waiting for me. I lit a smoke, and a man with a suit and tie game over and bought a cigarette for $3. He started asking personal questions, questions I didn't want a total stranger to know the answers to. An older man pushed him away, and told me to watch out for myself. Were these people protecting me? Yes. Because I was one of them.
I spent the next two days in a daze, not knowing what I was doing, just thinking of the big old building waiting for me at the end of the night, and my protectors outside. At school, I couldn't work. At my friends' houses, I couldn't participate. At night, I couldn't sleep, and I would listen to my roommate rolling around in his bed. The cold didn't bother me much. I just didn't care. I was in a state between asleep and awake. In the morning, the food would be tasteless.
Yet I began to see how the homeless were -- human and friendly. I talked to them and heard stories. They were just like you and me, trying to survive, but on a lower level. There was no chance for those people, but they appreciated what they had. Still, the haunting look in their eyes scared me.
Again, I felt depressed. I wouldn't amount to anything. Suicidal thoughts began to creep up on me again.
On Saturday, I went with my friends to play pool but I couldn't participate. I called my mom, and told her I wanted to come home. She picked me up. I was dead tired, and ready to collapse. As we gathered my stuff from the Salvation Army, I filled her in on only the slightest details of my time on the streets. I slept all day, without a single thought.
I may have grown up a lot in that week but it reminded me that I was still just a kid in a big world. The effects of living on the streets hardens you and makes you stronger and tougher.
I see the homeless in a different light now. I used to see them as failures, making nothing of their lives. I used to laugh at them and pass them by. Since my experience, I look at them as human beings, who just want to survive. I appreciate every bite of food I have, every cent I get and the pleasures I have. I know what it's like to be in their shoes.
I was one of them. 

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