Jesse Thistle’s memoir From the Ashes is a disturbingly honest account of one man’s journey from losses in childhood to a destructive cycle of addiction and crime to time in a Lowertown shelter and eventually to life as a respected academic. His personal story delves into the consequences of intergenerational trauma in Indigenous communities.
The brief descriptions of the life of an addicted homeless man in Lowertown are truly haunting. After jumping the fence at Harvest House Rehabilitation Centre, he arrived at the Shepherds of Good Hope shelter and immediately re-entered the world of drug and alcohol abuse. He fished change from the Centennial Flame fountain on Parliament Hill. He shoplifted and sold the stolen items to cab drivers in front of the Rideau Centre. He sometimes slept in one of the parking garages in the Market. He begged store employees to use their washrooms and when refused, suffered the humiliation of soiling his clothes.
Finally, in despair, he decided to jump from a half-completed building on Rideau Street. Salvation came in the person of a “soup kitchen lady” who recognized him and talked him down from peril.
The book started with Jesse’s memories supplemented by narratives from family, friends, police officers, social workers, shelter workers and probation officers who knew him during his turbulent life. It turned into scholarly doctoral work on Indigenous homelessness. Jesse once lived among us in Lowertown and the book reveals much about the desperate daily world of our shelter neighbours.