Grateful young woman heads back to college with hope

Looking ahead with optimism: Previously homeless, woman returns to school thanking all who helped out

Autumn has snuck in with the underlying chill in the air and, too soon, droughtstressed trees have shed their leaves.

So, there was a crunch underfoot as we entered the forest on the last weekend before the real, new year, the school year, begins.

Part Cree and part European, she stopped at the entry to do as the elders have taught her. She made a small offering of tobacco and herbs before entering a new place and asked for protection and guidance.

Except for that moment’s pause, she vibrated with excitement because classes start today.

She’s waited all summer for this, worked hard — often seven days a week — to earn money to help augment her scholarship that covers tuition and books.

She talked about her fresh, new folders and binders. She talked about the smell of the crisp paper and the pencils when you sharpen them. She’d bought the thicker notepaper and she’d bought pencil crayons to replace the ones she’d carefully kept since elementary school.

She never remembered having new school supplies, only second-hand everything. Her family was poor and often had no money for the basic, let alone optional, supplies.

So far, there are no new clothes. She’s waiting for all the fall clothes to arrive to make her choices.

Although only 18, she has a bucket list of want-to-dos before she’s 30. High on the list is getting a master’s degree.

The rest are simple things like going snowshoeing, which we agree to do if and when snow falls on the local mountains.

Much later on, she tells me about her new laptop. The old one was an unreliable hand-medown that couldn’t do what she needed. The new one is thin and half the weight, which will make her two-hour commute to her second year at college easier.

But it’s fraught. She’s not good with technology. The new laptop doesn’t have Word loaded on it and she needs it. She’s told she can download it. But she’s only 18, doesn’t have a credit card. And she’s worried about the cost of it.

Her fierce independence had kept her from mentioning it sooner. She hates asking for help. So as we neared the end of the trail, we sorted out the details of how to fix the problem.

Little more than 18 months ago, we first met on Family Day. She was homeless, living in a temporary youth shelter, having fled a home where she no longer felt safe.

The ministry had refused to take her into government care. The social worker told her to go home. Her teachers and counsellors supported her emotionally, often with money for food and other necessities. Many of her clothes came from the school’s lost box.

She’d asked me to tell her story and I agreed, promising always to preserve her anonymity to keep her safe at least until she is an adult. Others responded to her story with generous offers money and help, not least of which was a safe, supportive place to live.

She graduated that spring, was the valedictorian and she went to prom dressed like a princess. She was the first in her family to graduate from high school.

Last fall, she was as frightened as she was excited at the prospect of college. She was afraid that it would defeat her. It didn’t. She finished her certificate course with only a single B marring her straight-A expectation.

She finished with the resolve that she will not only be able to finish a bachelor’s degree, but a master’s degree.

For everything that has happened to her — all the good and the bad — she is grateful. It’s gratitude that she mostly talked about as we walked in the woods.

She talked about being grateful for living in Canada and in this particular place where, so close to downtown, there are forests where the sun filters through towering evergreens, backlighting grandfather’s beard.

She is grateful for the wisdom of her grandparents and other elders who have helped her on this journey, about the generosity of strangers and, about the unexpected.

A few months ago, and nearly two years after her first plea to a social worker to be taken into foster care, the Ministry of Children and Family Development agreed to put her on a youth agreement, which provides about $1,000 a month for rent, food and expenses.

It’s a bit of a pyrrhic victory since she’ll be 19 in November and too old for youth care system. But it’s victory all the same.