a rose by many other names

her name was probably not rose.

she had changed her name so many times over the many years that i knew her that i could not recall her original name or if i had ever known it. i had known her since i was a kid on the rez. she was older. enough for me to see her as an adult. 

and almost every time I ran into her she was going by a different name.

rose was just the first one i remember hearing.

she wasn’t beautiful. her presence didn’t carry the weight that beautiful people do when you’re young. i once heard a guy her own age refer to her as pig face and that was pretty close to the truth. i did not feel the sadness that i do now on reflection that simply because she had not been born the lucky winner of the lottery of beauty that she was so easily dismissed, not just by others, but by me.

she wasn’t particularly kind. but then I doubt that she was dealt much kindness in her life. she wasn’t funny or charming or crazy enough to be frightening.

she was just this older girl who i first knew as rose.

and when she disappeared from the rez, i and everyone else barely took any notice.

it wouldn’t be until years later when i ran into her in downtown toronto and recognized her. she was calling herself janice then. maybe after janice joplin. when she wasn’t sleeping under benches in the park, when she wasn’t smoking crack or meth or anything else she could get her hands on, she could make the most beautiful moccasins and drums.

she had a gift.

whatever name she chose to live by, whatever her actual name, she had a real gift.

she was an artist.

she was a gifted artist.

she may not have had a beautiful face or body but she could make the most beautiful things. that made her beautiful to me. it didn’t matter what she called herself.

when i worked door at a club on queen street she would come by. often she was drunk or stoned and when she was she would rant and i would listen. like so many who came from the world we had come from she had anger and more than that, much more than that, she had pain. deep soul scarring pain. sometimes she would recognize me and sometimes not. it didn’t bother me when she didn’t recognize me. it didn’t bother me when she was drunk or wasted. i didn’t know her life story or anything but i knew the world we both came from and i knew she had her reasons.

when it got really cold i would sometimes buy cheap blankets and mittens from the dollar store and i would go looking for her. when i did find her it was often under a bench or wandering the streets in stupefaction.

every once in a while she would sober up and start making moccasins and drums and other things. sometimes she would make moccasins or a drum for me and bring it to me at the club.

the thing about coming from the world that we both came from is that people disappear all the time and you don’t know if they’re dead or if they’ve just gone somewhere else.

when she disappeared it was during a particularly nasty winter.

word doesn’t get out much when people like her die.

usually they just get cremated in a cardboard box by the government and the world goes on.

there are days when i believe she just went somewhere and lived out what was left of her life.

most days i believe that she died in the snow and cold and then was lost among all the bodies of those the world doesn’t care about nearly enough.

not that i did much better.

i did look for her at some point. i spent a few of the coldest days looking for her and asking around.

but in the end i just went on with my life.

a little sadder than i had been whenever she did cross my mind.

i don’t even have any of the moccasins she made me. they wore out a long time ago.

maybe she’s still out there alive somewhere. maybe she quit the drugs and the booze and she’s out there living a normal life, making beautiful moccasins and drums.

maybe.

probably not.

i never even learned her real name.

maybe it was rose.

probably not.

maybe she was as delicate and as open as that name once upon a time.

maybe.

probably not.

she probably never had that luxury.

i never knew her real name.

but i remember her.

and i remember the beautiful things that she could make.

i remember that about her.

it’s not much.

it’s probably not enough.

but for people like her, far too many people, what they get from the world is not enough.

i never knew her real name.

maybe it was rose.

maybe. 

probably not.

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