“Maybe,” she said. “But not really.”

 

I was particularly struck by Kristy Hoffman’s article in the August 27th Globe and Mail. Titled “For Tina Fontaine’s cousin, a lesson on the dangers of running away,” it focuses on Destiny Lameman, the 15 year old cousin of the recently murdered aboriginal youth, Tina Fontaine.

In my day as a social worker, youth, both in care and not, were forever running away. I imagine it hasn’t changed. Within the child welfare system, an absence has to be reported. It becomes habit, routine; both the running away and the reporting. Most of the running ends harmlessly. Death is not often the result.

In my own small way, I try, in Like a Child to Home,to explore the running away and the odd exigencies of fate that can get in the way of wishful thinking.

Ms. Hoffman’s article ends with a question asked of Destiny by her mother about what lessons she had absorbed from her cousins murder. With a truth only the young can appreciate, she honestly says that she believes her cousin’s fate could never be hers.

It might, she allows but then qualifies it with a youthful expression of optimism, “Maybe,” she said. “But not really.”