Letters to my Grandchildren

by David Suzuki

  What bike fiends your parents were—especially your dad, who got your mom to join him in cycling all the way from Alaska down to Vancouver and then from San Diego up to British Columbia. No wonder you are such an incredible athlete. I didn’t know of your father’s dream to bicycle from Chile to Vancouver and am sorry he wasn’t able to realize that dream. Shifting to a motorcycle to make the trip was still a wonderful idea, and I am sure he had a fantastic time making his way north on his bike. His death in a hit-and-run was devastating, but I hope you find some comfort in knowing that he was living his dream and that he died instantly and so didn’t suffer.

  Your mom’s memorial event for your dad in West Vancouver’s Lighthouse Park was a wonderful gathering to remember him in one of his favourite places. When your mom passed out handfuls of his ashes to put somewhere in the park, I scrambled down the rocks to a big tidal pool and threw my handful into it. Immediately sculpins rose and fed on the ashes, and I ran back to tell people that your dad had re-entered the great cycle of life.

  Tamo, you have been a remarkable athlete in hockey, football, and especially snowboarding. I know that much of your drive has come from your incredible competitiveness. When I took you to the Seaweed camp of the Gitga’at people from Hartley Bay, you were still a boy, but you were so competitive that you beat everyone else at cards. To this day, they still talk about “that kid who kept winning at cards.” That competitiveness is evident now when you play board games up at the cabin.

  But I have been filled with the most pride and admiration for your evolution into an activist and for the way you have communicated with other young people. On your trip to the Alberta tar sands, I believe, you were radicalized and became more savvy about getting your message out. It’s been amazing to watch how you have used social media to express your admiration and passion for the Tahltans and their struggle to protect the Sacred Headwaters and thus to ignite public interest in their cause.

  I was honoured that you asked me for advice and paid attention to my suggestion to meet First Nations people with respect and to spend time listening to them. Now they love and trust you, which is a huge tribute to you. Respect, not guilt or pity, is the key to understanding. I have no idea where you will end up making your mark, Tamo, but you are launched and I am confident that whatever you do, you will do well and with integrity.

  {fourteen}

  MIDORI

  MY DARLING ONLY GRANDDAUGHTER,

  Your older brother, Tamo, has set a high bar for you, and I am sure it helps that you don’t have to compete with him as a kid brother might. You are such a beautiful illustration of heterosis, the phenomenon in genetics in which hybrids of two different strains of plants or animals result in vigorous and lovely combinations (I made up the “lovely” part, but I believe that is what happens in humans, and you are lovely). In the early part of the twentieth century, geneticists believed that since different races evolved in different environments, the offspring of interracial couples would suffer “disharmonious combinations,” meaning that they would be physically inferior to their parents. But “inferior” is a value judgment, not a scientifically meaningful category. This idea was just another racist assumption in the guise of science that was undermined by the discovery of heterosis.

  Having an accomplished older sibling is always a burden for a younger brother or sister, as Uncle Troy, Auntie Sarika, or Cousin Tiisaan can attest. But you have carved out your own persona, your own likes and dislikes, while also supporting your brother in things like his activism. Watching you play soccer and hockey has given me such joy, especially when I think of how much the world has changed for girls since my childhood. As you know, I have three sisters, but my dad’s attitude was that girls should finish high school and then get a job . . . until they find a partner and get married. Can you believe it? That was a very common attitude in the 1950s.

  Once, in a high school civics class, the teacher asked what our parents did. I was the only one whose mother worked, and I was embarrassed because we were so poor that my mother had to work. She worked throughout my childhood and teenage years. When she went to high school, she learned to be a secretary, but before the war she washed clothes and sewed with Dad in their laundry and dry-cleaning shop. After the war, she took jobs on farms picking berries and harvesting potatoes, tomatoes, and other vegetables. Then she got a job as a secretary for a construction company. When she and Dad “retired” to move back to Vancouver, she worked in my lab taking care of my fly stocks.

  When I was in high school, during the early 1950s, women were expected to raise the family and care for the household while men worked and brought in the family income. A working mother was a sign of poverty. As the women’s rights movement began to grow, demanding equal opportunity and equal pay for equal work, enormous opportunities opened up for women. It was a struggle, but now girls can aspire to hope and dream beyond being the roles of wife and mother. Once, math and physics were considered men’s areas, but women are making a mark in these fields. More than half of all students in undergraduate and graduate schools, medicine, and law are women, and in traditionally male fields like engineering, agriculture, and forestry, enrolment of women is rising rapidly. This is a seismic shift, and although there remain barriers to many top positions in business and professions, they are bound to be broken by the sheer numbers and talents of women working in those areas.

  You may find it hard to believe, but Nana was once rejected for citizenship because she wanted to keep her last name when we married. Nana was born in England and immigrated with her parents to Canada when she was five. But she didn’t bother to take out Canadian citizenship until we were married and were planning a four-month trip around the world. She needed a passport and realized she had to take out citizenship in order to get one. This should have been a simple step, but when she applied, she was rejected (her brother, Uncle Pieter, was with her and got his citizenship right away). Nana and I were shocked and outraged. I called the news desk at the Vancouver Sun suggesting it would be a good story. The man on the other end of the phone couldn’t see why this was of interest. “My wife took my name and loves it,” he snorted.

  Nana appealed for reconsideration and was called to Ottawa to make her case. She was finally granted citizenship and a Canadian passport, and today a woman’s keeping her last name after marriage is no big deal. A few months after Tara got her passport, a woman in the United States encountered a similar rejection for keeping her maiden name, and that was reported in the Vancouver Sun.

  Today, my darling, I don’t sense that you feel any limits imposed by gender on what you choose to do in your life. Your mother and grandmothers were feminists who demanded an end to the sexism that limited their futures. For many women, raising a family is still a priority, but economic conditions may force women to work simply to make ends meet, and we are still evolving ways to support a woman’s career opportunities while also raising children.

  I am also so happy to see the enormous shift in sexual mores of your generation. When I was young, boys expected to marry girls who were virgins, though there was a lot of hanky-panky going on. After all, teen years are a time of discovery and exploration, and boys are ham-mered by testosterone. But it meant that girls might use pregnancy to coerce boys into marriage (called “shotgun weddings”), unwanted pregnancies could lead to horrific mutilation or death from backroom abortions, or girls would be sent away to avoid the shame of having the baby, who was given up for adoption. So many futures were truncated by an accidental pregnancy.

  Hmm, a letter like this enables me to raise issues I haven’t spoken to you about in person. In my youth, contraceptives were difficult or embarrassing to obtain. They were always locked in a cabinet behind a counter, so you had to ask for them, which was excruciating, especially if a pharmacist asked for your age. It was the birth control pill that really launched women on a new path. Women could now control their own fertility, and that has changed everything. Today sex can be explored without fear
of pregnancy, and women can call the shots about whom to have sex with without having to make a permanent commitment or limit their own career paths. This has been a radical change in society, and there are all kinds of unintended consequences. For example, fertility declines with age, so women who wait too long to start a family may have trouble conceiving and thus require fertility induction or even in vitro fertilization.

  Do you remember Seaweed camp? I was so happy to be able to take you there! You got to sit in the copilot’s seat and fly into Hartley Bay on a floatplane. Wasn’t that exciting? And when we got to the camp, you were happy to bunk with everybody, in the cabin that belonged to Chief Johnny Clifton.

  You got on so well with Shelby, and now you are both grown-up, but back then you got to be children, and with her you learned to gather seaweed and prepare halibut and salmon for drying. You experienced the way people have lived for thousands of years. I hope that that experience will remain with you always, because in a city we have such a distant relationship with food and food gathering, and we need to be reminded what food is and how it is harvested.

  I believe that diversity is a great strength in society, because the more perspectives one gets on an issue, the better decisions will be. Men and women are different— physically, physiologically, and psychologically—and we should celebrate those differences. It is absurd that half of the population, women, should not have the opportunity to make an equal contribution to society. Women’s full participation in society leads to greater gender, ethnic, professional, and economic diversity in all aspects of our world. You are not the only beneficiary of feminism; all of society benefits.

  I so look forward to the path you will follow in the future. We’ve already enjoyed your athleticism in hockey and soccer, and as you make a decision about a career, the opportunities are so great, darling, and Nana and I are rooting for you all the way.

  {fifteen}

  JONATHAN

  MY BEAUTIFUL, BEAUTIFUL BOY,

  What joy your arrival brought your parents and grandparents! But the human brain is a complex, oxygen-demanding organ, and it can be damaged, as yours was, when oxygen fails to reach it for even a few minutes during the trauma of birth. The discovery that you have cerebral palsy was devastating, and the diagnosis elicited all kinds of emotions in your parents, I’m sure—guilt at the thought that they had failed in some way, sadness that your future would be so circumscribed by your handicap, and determination to ensure that you would have the most opportunities and the best life experience you could.

  I have been amazed and inspired by your parents, Laura and Peter, who have showered you with unstinting love and focused their efforts on maximizing your use of your body and your mind. I am happy that our society gives support—though inadequate and often too bureaucratic—to disadvantaged young people like you. Wheelchairs and teachers trained to deal with special needs have been so important for you as you’ve grown up. When I was a boy, families felt humiliated if a child was born with a disability and would often hide such a child away.

  Every parent wants their children to be physically and mentally healthy. The genetic lottery ensures a wide array of human potential, but during pregnancy and birth there is always the possibility of accidents and abnormalities. I fear that as birthrates drop and parents invest much more time and energy in their children, they demand near perfection. But what is normal? Where is the cutoff for what is acceptable or desirable?

  In their drive for perfection, people are now using techniques to try to ensure that embryos conceived in vitro do not carry genes that would create a defect. There are techniques to take cells from a developing fetus in order to detect chromosomal and other abnormalities, the most common being Down syndrome, or trisomy 21. This is a slippery slope, especially with Down children, who definitely carry a hereditary defect but whose range of intellectual and physical abilities is quite wide. At what point do we decide that a human being should not exist? I find it a very difficult question.

  What if there is a class of fetuses that, at the time of conception, could be predicted to have a high probability of not completing high school; of suffering a variety of problems, including alcoholism, obesity, and diabetes; and of ending up on welfare or in prison? That prediction could be made about those in certain ethnic groups or those who are poor, and clearly racism and discrimination, not biology, are the causes of the prognosis for these fetuses.

  Jonathan, you won’t remember, but during your early years, your parents read everything they could about the human brain and body and used every means possible to stimulate your muscles and your mind. I was amazed at the way your dad would flip you around, lifting you and stimulating the muscles you needed to balance yourself. Your parents knew that even though you are legally blind, your brain could receive signals from other parts of the visual system, and as a result, you can read. I don’t understand how it works, but I know you look at things not directly but at an angle that lets you see from a different part of your retina. The computer and television have been a godsend to you, and you have done so well in school and at home. I am so proud of you.

  My darling boy, you have been so brave in confronting the pain of your disability. Do you remember that summer when you came to stay at our cabin on Quadra Island and you caught your first shiner on our dock? How you loved the feeling of speed in our boat as the wind blew through your hair and seaspray hit your face! And you loved the seafood—the prawns and clams and oysters. But because you were going through a growth spurt, the bones in your hips were not articulating properly, so when you were flying back to Vancouver in a small plane and the table dropped down on your leg, it snapped a bone. How excruciating that must have been! You ended up having to get home quickly to Toronto, where complex surgery was performed to get the bones and joint aligned properly.

  As your parents have had to adjust their lives to the reality of your special needs and limitations, I have been inspired and filled with admiration. They are ordinary people who have acted with extraordinary strength and love, which is, to me, truly heroic. I believe we define ourselves as a species in the way we treat those who are disabled, handicapped, or in need of special care, and our response affirms that we are an amazing species.

  Soon you will be finished with school, and as a man, you will meet new challenges when you consider finding a house that you can share with others. All your life, each challenge for you has also brought great joy as you’ve met and overcome them. You are my hero, Jonathan, and Nana and I are so proud of you.

  {sixteen}

  GANHLAANS

  DEAREST GANHLAANS,

  What happiness you have brought into our lives! Your mother has been an activist all her life and knows the dire environmental path we are on. I asked how she felt about having a child when the world was in such bad shape, and she answered that you were her commitment to continue working to make a better future. Since you arrived on this Earth, you have been a joy who has enriched our lives just by being alive.

  Looking back on our lives, it almost seems as if it were predestined that you would come into the world. Nana and I have been deeply involved in Haida Gwaii since the late 1970s, when I first learned there was a battle about logging going on there. I flew to the airport at Sandspit on the islands for the first time in the early 1980s, and I interviewed your nannai, Diane, in Skidegate, on the other side of the inlet from Sandspit. Boy, was I scared, because I had heard what a strong person she was. And she was, but we got on well, and a few years later, it was her mother, your great-grandmother Ada, who adopted me.

  The film we did for The Nature of Things about the battle over logging on Haida Gwaii garnered a huge audience, and letters and phone calls supporting the Haida poured in. The way the Haida stood up to the forest company and the government to fight for the protection of their land inspired people all across Canada. At the time, I didn’t think the Haida had a chance against all the forces aligned against them. But Guujaaw, Miles Richardson, and all the elders w
ho are now gone stood together and put their bodies on the line on Lyell Island. They were arrested, but their act prevented logging and eventually resulted in the creation of Gwaii Hanaas, a national park reserve. It was a huge achievement that inspired a nation. Ever since, Nana and I have loved to visit, and when we meet friends there they tell us, “Welcome home.” We feel Haida Gwaii is our second home, and now that you and Tiisaan live there, we have all the more incentive to visit often.

  The Haida connection to the land has inspired me and also taught me about our relationship with Mother Earth. It was Guujaaw who explained that without that connection, we are rootless and become like everyone else. And Miles has taught me about what it means to be political in the defence of one’s land. I never dreamed that the Haida would gain total control over the future of the entire island chain, but that’s what they have achieved by hold-ing firm to their claim to all of it.

  Your nannai recognized something in your mother, and she said she wanted Severn to come to Haida Gwaii for the summer to learn how to live on the land. When she was young, Sev was too shy to go, but as a teenager, she went there and learned so much from your nannai about the traditional ways of food gathering and preparation. I remember when Nana and I were going out fishing with Miles and we met your mother with your nannai and chinnai and Chief Watson Price. Your mother was so happy as she showed us all the salmon she had helped catch and the urchins and scallops she harvested. What a fantastic summer she had! Back then, your father was a full-grown man who was already chasing women. I am sure your nannai never thought your mom and dad would get together and marry one day, but she was pretty happy when they did.