I Am Nobody

by Greg Gilhooly

  I also made it clear to anybody who found out that I had been abused that I had no intention of suing anybody for anything. I just wanted to get better. The damage had been done. There was no justice system for me to access that would allow me to get my life back.

  Hockey Canada heard about me during the police investigation and reached out to me, and the people there were supportive throughout. Hockey Canada showed me an element of humanity that the legal system never could. This is likely because Hockey Canada is a world leader in how sports organizations can take steps to try to prevent and protect against sexual assault, and it has developed a deep understanding of such situations when they do occur. Hockey Canada implemented positive changes in minor hockey as a result of Graham’s first convictions, including background checks to flag dangerous offenders and prevent them from being put in positions of trust with young boys, as well as other programs to heighten awareness of risks.

  The only group I ever contacted for help was my local school board in Winnipeg, for Graham, as a substitute teacher, had abused me at the school once and had used his position as a teacher to win me over as much as he had used his position as a hockey coach. I approached the school board only after the legal process had played out and my name was public, when I was at my absolute lowest and worst. Still, I made it clear up front that I was not going to commence any litigation, that I was just offering them a chance to do whatever they thought was appropriate in the circumstances. In the end, I requested compensation for therapy and medication that I was paying for out of pocket. They declined, pointing out, among other things, that any money paid to me would come out of resources that would otherwise go to teaching young children. Fair point. I felt bad for even asking. So many coincidences. As a young, tall goalie who excelled at both hockey and school, it was only natural that people would often bring up Ken Dryden in connection with me while I was growing up. Then, while in law school, I was able to try on his skates to see if they would fit. Things then came full circle when Dryden wrote an article in the Globe and Mail about the time when, as president of the Toronto Maple Leafs, he had received a letter from Martin Kruze, the Dorset Park Ranger, before Kruze killed himself as a result of the sexual abuse he endured at Maple Leaf Gardens.

  It was because of that article that Roy MacGregor at the Globe and Mail wrote a feature about me and gave me a voice. And, while it was difficult at the time to speak loudly, that voice has made all the difference for the positive outcomes in my recovery.

  Dryden’s article fascinated me because of how exceedingly human he revealed himself to be. In that article, and in interviews since, Dryden has been open about his initial inability to respond to Kruze’s letter, how he left it sitting on his desk until it was too late. But he didn’t hide. He stepped up and admitted right away that, with everything going on around him, he had missed that the important thing would have been to simply respond as a human being. He owned it, he was never going to make that mistake again, and he made amends. In the end he did the human thing.

  One of the things I have encountered repeatedly since I came forward is a tendency for people who were at one time close to Graham to “lawyer up” whenever speaking with me. My conversations with such people are not spontaneous. Words are spoken, not freely, but very precisely in a type of hockey legalese. And when I reached out to the local school board in Winnipeg, my only contact was with a lawyer at a firm they hired immediately after I contacted them.

  It’s an interesting thing, asking questions about the past. People have a natural tendency to run toward success and run away from failure. For a guy who was as successful as Graham was in the hockey world, Graham sure seems to have a lot of people who were once close to him who now say they were never really friends with him—at least, when speaking to me.

  I completely understand a desire to avoid any association with a convicted serial child sexual predator. But there should be no shame in admitting to having been conned by Graham. The only shame is in denying it.

  In my case, all I had wanted was for people who’d been around Graham to step up and admit that they’d missed it too and that they were sorry it had happened. Maybe, I thought, they might even ask how I was doing and check to see if I was holding it together. All I had wanted was for people to respond as caring humans in a shared community where somebody from their own community had been sexually abused. But I was naive not to understand that when a delicate issue like Graham came up people would understandably focus on potential legal exposure and their personal risk in responding.

  Stories of sexual abuse are nothing to run from and they should not be situations where the first thought is to focus on possible legal liability. Instead, they are extreme examples of a failure in the human fabric that leaves behind victims who are in desperate need of the best that humanity has to offer.

  A LAW SCHOOL classmate of mine, now a senior professor at the University of McGill Faculty of Law, invited me to Montreal to deliver a lecture. She was interested in my story as it related to whether the law adequately protects the most vulnerable in our society. In speaking to the students and other professors in the lecture hall that day, I conveyed what I thought is perhaps the fundamental problem with our legal system: an increasing absence of humanity. Harkening back to my own thoughts in first year criminal law, I reminded the audience that the law is meaningless if you forget that every case in every set of precedents involves real people who may have suffered actual harm and indignity. I asked that they never again read another legal case without thinking long and hard about the people involved and what had happened to them, rather than focusing only on the legal principles at stake. Only then will the law develop in a humane way.

  The lecture went well, but I was dealing with another issue that day that was more than slightly distracting. Graham was reportedly living in the Montreal area. Despite the progress I had made, I was seeing ghosts. The lecture had been publicized. Would he show? I kept glancing around the room. Of course checking for him made no sense. Of course he wasn’t there. But I started to panic, to sweat, to fear him once again. He may not have been in the hall, but he was out there, somewhere.

  Montreal, glorious Montreal, home of Les Canadiens, my second favorite hockey team next only to the Winnipeg Jets, bonds that had been formed back when I was a young boy, when it was possible to cheer for both the Jets in the WHA and the Habs in the NHL. Was Montreal now a poisoned place for me? Of course not. This fear of seeing Graham in Montreal was so silly, so irrational, of course it would instantly go away. But it didn’t, and it was a very long day.

  There is nothing in hockey as awe-inspiring as watching the Montreal Canadiens play at home, back in the day in their whites, now in their reds. I grew up playing for the St. James Canadians, with the anglophone “a” instead of an “e,” but in identical uniforms, dreaming my hockey dreams. I loved everything about the Habs. Even now, decades later, back home and miles away from Montreal, I watch them. But then, in an instant, I find myself wondering whether Graham is at the Molson Centre for their home games. Without realizing it I find myself changing the channel away from the game to ease the blip in my stress level until I get it back under control.

  I am so much better.

  I can manage it now.

  But I also understand that he will always be there.

  EPILOGUE

  ALIVE AND KICKING

  It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones.

  —Luke 17:2

  AM I TO forgive him? Am I to believe that in completing his time behind bars he has fulfilled his debt to society, that he is entitled to forgiveness, that he should be free to start life anew, and that anything less makes him a victim of something far worse? Was his time behind bars, reduced for the very reason that he is so hard done by on account of the public’s awareness of who he is and the crimes he committed, all he should have to endure?

  I ha
ve learned so much about myself through my recovery. I have learned that I am far stronger than I ever imagined I could be, that my very existence is testament to my ability to fight harder than most may ever have to fight.

  But I’m not strong enough to forgive.

  IN THE END, whatever happens to him now, it doesn’t change who I am or what I will be able to do with the rest of my life.

  I long ago accepted that no form of justice or validation would ever come from a third party. As much as I craved closure from our legal system or from Graham himself, I came to understand that finding value and meaning from within was really the only thing that had ever mattered.

  In coming forward, I reconnected with my mother (now dead), brother, and sister. I have begun reconnecting with friends who ask no questions and who forgive me for having dropped out of their lives.

  I will continue to heal so that the past will no longer define me. The past will always be a part of the tapestry of who I am, it will always be there, but it need not dictate my future.

  I am not too proud to admit that I still need help.

  Although the story of my life isn’t finished, I like to think that the story is one of hope, of survival. I have learned to value the knowledge, understanding, and empathy I have developed as a result of my experience, and I believe that the experience has in a strange way made me a better person. Good has come out of the bad, and I wouldn’t trade my life for anybody else’s.

  Some may find that to ring false. After all, several summers ago my Princeton classmate Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com and a Time Magazine Person of the Year, successfully launched a rocket on a day when my biggest accomplishment had been to go to the store and buy ketchup. Insult was added to injury when it was pointed out to me that I could have stayed home, ordered the ketchup online through his company, and had the product delivered to my door. Yet, life is about achievements and lessons of all kind, with each and every one of us having our own experiences, each of us looking back on our own pasts as “an arch wherethrough / Gleams that untraveled world, whose margin fades / For ever and for ever when [we] move” (Tennyson). I’m just thankful for my own life, a life that has never been without challenge, learning, and, ultimately, growth.

  I refuse to continue to feel victimized and overwhelmed, and I am determined to maintain a sense of well-being. I was told not long ago by a person I love deeply that I have a beautiful soul, and that, to me, is the greatest affirmation I could ever receive, one I believe would not have been possible if I hadn’t gone through what I did.

  I choose to believe that my past has made me better, and this belief only makes me stronger as I transition from one who has survived to one who can once again thrive. I have a lot of life left to live and to give, and while certain opportunities are gone, others have yet to present themselves. Once a victim of the most horrible form of abuse, I am now moving forward with hope and resolve to live a life full of love and happiness, a life of worth, for I am indeed worthy of living.

  It’s difficult to say what I gained from coming forward. It would be easy to say nothing but trouble, but coming forward opened my eyes and forced me to rededicate myself to an even more intensive recovery—one at which I am succeeding.

  I wrote this book to give myself closure on that part of my life, to force myself to confront the past and explain as honestly as possible how it affected me, to crystallize my belief that although the abuse will always be part of who I am, it need not define me.

  Giving voice to what it is like to go through that abuse and to try to come to grips with it has been a difficult process that has taken me to disturbing places. But I’m still here, and as bad as things got, they didn’t defeat me but instead gave me a perspective that allows me to see the beauty in a fallen leaf when others might be too occupied to even notice it or too worried about whether or not the wind is messing up their hair.

  This book is my statement of survival after a horrific experience. It took so long to get it right. And maybe earlier a part of me wasn’t ready to move on yet, maybe I was comfortable in my pain, maybe I was afraid of what life would be like when I finished writing it and it would be time to move on to the next chapter of my life, whatever that may be. Maybe I was afraid that I really was all of the horrible things I thought about myself, that I had it right when I thought I had no worth or value to anybody, that maybe I really don’t belong.

  To get to the point where I could write this book, I first had to get to the point in my recovery where I could take a hard look at everything in my past, no matter how ugly, and accept that all of that is a part of who I am. To get to that point, I had to understand exactly who I was and what had happened. But to gain the tools to do that, I had to first decide to deal with what happened and tell somebody what happened. I had to decide that I wanted to live, because telling somebody else about what happened feels like death itself. To really understand that I did in fact want to live, I had to confront the alternative of death head on.

  And I did.

  That seemingly golden life of mine was anything but. I had a terrible secret that I had kept from everyone but that was always there, that had a life of its own inside my head, that was my reality after being groomed and sexually abused. I kept things together as best as I could, but it was always there, speaking to me in a way that only I understood. In my mind, I had an idea of who I was, a reality that went with me wherever I went, whatever I did. But it did not mesh with the reality the outside world saw. The world couldn’t see what I “knew” to be my reality.

  I have spent almost forty years trying to forget everything about Graham, trying to forget about all of it. Everything I have done ever since I first met him has been an attempt to run away from him, to run away from it, to run away from myself. But those dead shark eyes, his eyes, are still there, haunting me.

  I’m getting better now. I’m finally able to look back with greater understanding, I can look forward and see that there is a road ahead, a path to a bright future, a future I was always supposed to have.

  I made it through and have come out better than I was going in.

  I can now both say the words and keep fighting to live them:

  I was a victim. It wasn’t my fault. I’m not responsible for what Graham did to Todd or Theo or Sheldon. I deserved Princeton. I deserved whatever success I had there. I deserved U of T law school and the Varsity Blues. I deserved Torys, CanWest, Cookie Jar Entertainment, and the rest. I deserved to be married. I deserve my friends. I deserve to be healthy and in great physical shape once again. I deserve a good life with a happy ending.

  I was a nobody. Coming out of the abuse I became nobody at all. But now I have come to believe that I am somebody, somebody with a future who can have that happy ending. Now, I am somebody.

  I am Greg Gilhooly.

  POSTSCRIPT

  OH, AND IF there is a God, I can’t believe he or she didn’t arrange things so that Ken Dryden’s skates fit me. I used to think that when they didn’t fit it meant that there would be no recovery, no Hollywood ending, that good things were never meant to be, that there was nobody watching over me. Now? Maybe it was a good sign after all. Maybe it just showed that I was meant for something bigger.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  THIS BOOK TOOK me years to write as I moved through stages in my recovery. I started and stopped and started again so many times in an effort to try to convey just what it is to go through what I went through, what I continue to deal with. I couldn’t have gotten through this without the help and support of so many. The words in this book are mine—there is no ghostwriter. But that doesn’t mean that I’m the only one who had a hand in writing this book. Far from it.

  So many reached out to me and kept me going, kept me alive, just by being there for me. Some were complete strangers who made contact just to let me know that they supported me. People from my past have crept back into my life. It has all been so humbling.

  Michael Levine, my agent, was there from the very st
art, telling me that I needed to write my story. I thank him and the rest of the team at Westwood Creative Artists who connected me with my publisher, Rob Sanders, and his group at Greystone Books. Rob—a true gentleman in every sense of the word—and everyone else at Greystone, showed me so much patience as I struggled to confront my past and write this book while still working to recover.

  Special thanks to my editor, Nancy Flight, who put up with me and my quirky style while always showing a soft, gracious touch when reining me in and refocusing me on what was truly important. I couldn’t have done this, something that has proven to be so cathartic and helpful in my recovery, without her.

  And of special note, both Nancy and Lesley Cameron (my copy editor who also made so many excellent suggestions) rigidly enforced American English spelling throughout this book. It is to my great shame and dishonour that I was unsuccessful in moving them from their position.

  I had the good fortune during my career to work with so many wonderful people in the legal community, first at Torys and later at Heenan Blakie, and then Blakes. Words cannot begin to describe the respect I still have for all of my colleagues from my days at CanWest, and especially for the Asper family—I thank them for bringing me in for the ride of a lifetime, no matter what fireworks may have ensued. I fully expect K.C. Bascombe to write and direct an award-winning film produced by Nick Seferian that is both filmed on location at and set in The Haig in Buenos Aires. And to Michael Hirsh and the rest at Cookie Jar, my eternal thanks for supporting me as long as was possible while I came forward.