FROM THE ASHES by Jesse Thistle
So many visibly homeless people especially, it seems to me, in Montreal and Ottawa. As I vacillate between avoiding, trying to help, and almost collapsing in despair, I am confronted with Jesse Thistle’s incredible memoir and, whilst I still have no answers, I feel uplifted that – at least sometimes – one truly can rise from the ashes.
Abandoned by his parents as a toddler, Jesse Thistle briefly found himself in the foster-care system with his two brothers, cut off from all they had known. Eventually the children landed in the home of their paternal grandparents, whose tough-love attitudes quickly resulted in conflicts. Throughout it all, the ghost of Jesse’s drug-addicted father haunted the halls of the house and the memories of every family member. Struggling with all that had happened, Jesse succumbed to a self-destructive cycle of drug and alcohol addiction and petty crime, spending more than a decade on and off the streets, often homeless. Finally, he realized he would die unless he turned his life around.