Rose's Cantina

When asked how she was doing after her husband died, a friend said she was "inconsolable". Inconsolable. It's a good word. I know the feeling. It's the feeling you get when you lose your child to drugs, to the street, to suicide. Sort of the same feeling in your stomach when you get into an elevator and it drops unexpectedly. Your stomach feels like you're chewing on it. Swishing it around your mouth. Then ripping it into smithereens because it hurts so bad. I lost my son Nicholas a few times. When he decided he'd rather live with his dad, "get to know him" and his stepmother. That time I lost him for five years. I got him back when his dad didn't want him anymore. Literally didn't want him. Dad shipped him off to a boarding school with a set of cheap sheets and expensive skates. Shipped him like a Fed Ex package. No return address. I lost him another time, after he'd returned to live with me at age 15. Instead of bunking wi...

It's been over five years since Michelle departed our lives, and since then, I have been drawn to any headline, every story and whatever I could get my hands on regarding mental health, depression and suicide. Over the years, I kept returning to one burning question: what saved me that Michelle could have benefitted from? If I deserved a second chance, why not her? -- Nicholas Gagnier, Ground Zero Michelle, the girl that my son was writing about in his new poetry anthology, was a constant presence in our house during high school. She was shy, waiflike, with a healthy head of blonde hair. She was always polite, rarely a bother, but was clearly troubled. Scott drove her home once after finding her crying in our bathroom. All she could say was "sorry". Like all the other kids, Michelle proudly graduated high school and then set off to pursue her dreams. But things didn't work out for Michelle who battled demons on multiple levels. About a year later, we heard t...

When Scott gets paid on Thursday, I will seek out a Salvation Army kettle and put $20 in it. This doesn't make me a hero. I'm just another person who needs to pay forward the gift the Sally Ann gave me 10 years ago. Fueled by a dangerous cocktail of depression, self-pity and substance abuse, my son Nick left home in the winter of his 16th year, headed for the mean streets of Ottawa. Fortunately, he had an angel on his shoulder in the form of Jacques Poirier, a counsellor with Ottawa's Youth Service bureau, who found him a home at the Salvation Army Young Men's Shelter. It wasn't exactly a free ride. Nick had to be out the door by 9 a.m. to either look for a job or get some counselling. He had to be back in time for curfew, or the doors would be locked. Sometimes, he didn't make the curfew and one night he had to sleep in minus 30 temperature in a parking garage downtown with drunks and addicts sniffing around him. Nick learned his lesson and al...