I'll Be Damned

This is a true story as told from my own personal perspective of growing up on an island on the eastern coast of Canada. There were many good times interlaced with many bad times as well, but all the while showing how resilient people in my family and in my community are. I hope I am able to convey to you the specialness of this place; the good, the bad, and the ugly. This is a story about living in an isolated home and community, living with parents that are hearing impaired, and also a story about challenges and resliliency, strong family bonds, and love in all its forms. Maybe you will catch a glimpse and wonder about Isle Madame and perhaps visit and see for yourself just how glorious and wonderful and bizarre Isle Madame is! And maybe, just maybe, you will feel with your eyes, feel with the depths of your soul, how challenging and yet how beautiful this island has been and continues to be to this day.

Chapter 1

As I reflect back on my years, you know, I realize, it wasn't all that bad. We always had food on the table, clothes on our backs, and the great outdoors and all it had to offer. We had a huge extended family, lots of friends, and routine. We went to school five days a week, spent Saturdays playing, and Sundays going to church and visiting relatives. It wasn't that bad, or at least I'd like to tell myself it wasn't that bad. But one doesn't have to scratch the surface much to see the devil is in the details.

I grew up on an island called Isle Madame, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Canada. Isle Madame is the most southern point of a bigger island called Cape Breton. Cape Breton is part of Nova Scotia, one of the ten provinces in our great country.

Isle Madame is steeped in history with having a cross section of French, Scottish, Mig'Maw, Irish, and everything else in between. It started out as a fishing village, being the most important trading post in North America during the late 1600s and 1700s. It still is a very important fishing village, but it's certainly not like it was in her hey day.

The majority of families on this island are Catholic. There are some families that are Anglican, although albeit very few. The Catholic Church had a very strong hold on the people there for centuries. It's just been the last few decades that the church has loosened its grip of control. I think the church started losing its iron fist when the first accounts of sexual abuse were spoken. It went downhill from there. Some may feel that it's a good thing, others feel that the world is coming to end because of it. I don't judge them. We're all on a path and I honour them because if you don't stand for something, then you don't stand for anything, and that's a sad and lonely place to be. The Catholic Church was the centre stone of our existence; everything rotated around the Church. You arranged the calendar in your mind around our religious holidays from Lent, Easter, to Christmas, and everything in between. You couldn't get away from it, even if you tried, for if someone pointed a finger at you for not going to mass or confession, there was always my Grandma Rosie there to steer you back on track. I loved her dearly and would always do as she said—well, for the most part. As I got older, I tried desperately not to disappoint her. If she ever was disappointed in me, she never said it. She always had kindness in her words and in her heart, not just for me, but for all of us. Rosie had tremendous faith and it never once wavered. I felt closer to God being in her presence than I ever did being in a church. I never felt judged by her, I only felt loved and maybe sometimes pitied. I never felt love at home and Rosie knew it. The best thing I learned from Rosie, a true gift I'd say, is the act of forgiveness. She forgave everyone, even the man that murdered her daughter and grandson. Now that is something. If we all had the capacity to forgive like Rosie, this world would be a different place. A better place.

I read an account in a history book as to how Isle Madame got its name. Isle Madame is French, meaning, Island of the Ladies. When the French built the Fortress of Louisbourg in 1713, the French Naval Officers brought their wives over with them on one boat, and brought their mistresses on another. Those mistresses were dropped off on Isle Madame by their ships. Their secret beloved would visit whenever their ships were docked. They were very beautiful, aristocratic French women, and thus garnered much attention. This is how Isle Madame got it's name. As a little girl, I would tell myself that I was a descendent of one of these beautiful French women. I noticed very early on that there were many very pretty women on the Island and would always secretly hope that I was as pretty as they were. It's largely French Acadian, with pockets of Irish and Scottish and Mig'Maw populations. We just recently discovered that we are Metis, which is a mix of European and Native ancestry. Isle Madame has many little communities on her, many reduced to just a few people living there now. I'd say there are probably 1,000 or so people left there, as compared to 5,000 or so. There isn't much left in the way of jobs anymore, most of our young people move away to make a living. We all wish to move back there, saying, "When I retire, I'll move back home," detecting a deep rooted ache, not sure if they are serious or not. Some do move back, most of us don't.

Isle Madame is breathtakingly beautiful. The scenery still takes my breath away. It seems so untouched by man that you feel like you're in a special place on earth, kind of like heaven in a way. It has a rugged coast line, beautiful beaches, gorgeous lakes and rivers, laced with the smell of salt air from the ocean. You are never that far away from the oceans. In most places you can see the ocean from where you are at. There is amazing history about this place. There is a certain pride to say that you are from Cape Breton and we brim with even more pride to say that we are from Arichat, one of the little communities on this God forsaken island.

We could talk amongst ourselves about how awful it is and was, being from there or living there. However, if someone from the "outside" said anything negative about our Island, we would defend our beloved land to the death. It seems we all have this "love/hate" relationship with this place we call home. We brim with pride and at the same time, we cover up our unsettled feelings with a hush, all of us knowing we have secrets about how bad it really was for us.

Most of us nicknamed this place. We all know which place you are referring to when you joke around and say you're from "I'll Be Damned." Only those that are from there understand this joke. When it's said, it's usually said in a jovial manner, but you can see the pain behind the eyes of the person saying it, you can even feel their dread sometimes. And then I wonder to myself, did they have it as bad as I did? Sometimes I know the answers, sometimes I don't. And when I don't have the answers, it never usually takes very long to find out as this is a community of gossipers. Folks loved to talk about one another. I used to think it was because there was nothing really left to do except gossip about one another, whether the stories were true or not. As I got older, I realized, it's really just human nature. I think it's to take the focus off of you and put it on someone else so that no one could find out about your own personal hell that you were suffering. Suffering in silence. You think you're suffering in silence, then you realize, you are being gossiped about too and then you wonder.......... how did they know?

Us "I"ll Be Damners," as we affectionately call ourselves, are natural born storytellers. We love to captivate our audience with grandiose gestures and embellishments of the story we are telling. We love storytelling, whether it be an old story from long ago or a story of something that recently happened to us. There is always an eager audience willing to listen. I think they are eager to listen so as to gossip about you later.

This is an island with many eccentric personalities, from the drunk fisherman that has his wallet wide open for all to take, the housewife that loves to play bingo, the musicians, the quirky with bizarre hobbies, to the high school teacher having an affair with his student, to the Catholic Priests that loved little boys. We had them all. They dotted the fabric of time with their different perspectives of life and the way they lived it. Some go down in our oral history as being remembered for their funny, weird ways, personalities so bizarre that a book should be written about them, or for being the eccentric storyteller that they are. Some of them go down in oral history, or just history lately, for the events they are involved in or created. It always seems like folks back home are into one upmanship; always trying to best the other out. It always makes for an interesting way to pass the time, to watch and listen, hoping to catch a good piece of information, maybe to help fill in the gaps of another story you heard previously, putting the pieces together, threading and weaving the bits and pieces into a patchwork quilt in your mind. And then you wonder...if these stories are true, then how awful it must have been for that person, or family, if the story is of an unfortunate nature. On the other hand, if the story was really funny or downright outrageously awesome, I would rejoice, knowing that there are many good, caring people that always tried to help out in their own sweet, caring ways.