George and Ruth Cook

Last week people at Tillicum Haus Native Friendship Centre invited me to attend a personal empowerment workshop called THUYALSHUNUM, Preparing For Your Life.

I witnessed some amazing growth over those five days both within myself and within the twenty or so people who gathered with me at Tsa-Kwa-Luten Lodge on Quadra Island.

I was most amazed when, for the first time ever, George Cook a seventy-five year old man, opened his heart, looked his wife in the eye, and publicly told her he loved her. Then he gave her a kiss...or did she kiss him?

This is a man who for most of his life had his emotions so deeply buried inside him that he couldn't stand to be around people who showed any signs of happiness.

"The only time I used to be able show affection to my wife in public was when I had alcohol," he told me. "I was raised up from a little boy to not show tears or emotions. I didn't want anyone to be happy around me. If I saw it, I had to shut it down."

George's wife, Ruth, on the other hand was raised by a mother who taught her that housework was easier and more enjoyable if you sang while doing it. Of course George wouldn't allow her to sing around the house.

"Fortunately I had friends with whom I could be my true self," she smiled.

A fishing boar captain for thirty-five years, George couldn't stand to see his men happy either. If they began to celebrate a particularly big catch, he would shut their celebration down immediately.

Of course alcohol helped deal with these stored up emotions and George drank until, in his late fifties, he realized that he would have to choose between alcohol and his family.

He joined Alcoholics Anonymous and Ruth joined Al Anon but, even though he remained sober, George's cravings for alcohol didn't go away until one night he got down on his knees beside his bed and prayed. The next morning the craving was gone.

At the beginning of his journey without alcohol, George called a family meeting. He wanted his family to walk with him on this new journey, he told me, and he didn't want them to have any grudges.

The meeting lasted two days during which they told him about all the ways he had hurt them while he was under the influence of alcohol, the lies, the pain, the broken promises.

About this same time Ruth asked George the big question; had he been sexually abused in residential school? He had.

This sexual abuse had led to George being unable to deal with emotions, especially happy emotions. It was also the root cause of his problems with alcohol.

"Once I accepted that the shame and pain was not mine to carry, that the whole responsibility was on the abuser, things began to change," he told me.

Soon George and Ruth had become active elders in their community attending workshops and working in Drug and Alcohol Treatment Centres. Then, last Sunday, the kiss, a kiss and a declaration of love right there in front of us all.

That kiss would appear to be the end of a very long journey but when you talk to George and Ruth, you begin to realize that it's not the end; it's just the beginning of a deeper and much more exciting new journey. In many ways their life has just begun.

"You're never to old to learn new ways," Ruth smiled.

Over the next months I hope to write more about Tillicum Haus, an organization that has many wonderful gifts to offer this community.

To read any of our past columns or to nominate a Neighbourhood Hero go to www.nhero.org.