“I am built to hurt people, but I am born to heal,” Mary Kelly says.
Mary Kelly has been doing community work for over twenty years. She’s an outspoken and tough Inuit woman in her forties, and full of love for the people she works with. Kelly has a confident presence – maybe intimidating to some, but comforting to many others.
“I'm surprised I didn't burn your camera yet. My energy is large,” says Kelly.
These days, Kelly is an intervention worker in Milton-Parc, where many homeless Inuit live. La Converse spoke with Mary Kelly at Comm-Un, the community organization where she works. She jubilantly greets everyone who walks in, sometimes inviting them to sit with her while she does her interview.
When I asked her how the Inuit community in Milton-Parc connects, she answered “Family.”
“Why do you think I get along with everybody?” she asks me.
“Because you relate to them?” I say.
“Because I am related to them. I come from the biggest families from up north, both sides. I am related to all of them. I respect them. I sit and I listen. I sit and I drink and I pan with them. I am no different. I don't judge them. I got you no matter what,” she tells us.
From independence to motherhood
Before bonding with the broader Inuit community in Montreal, Kelly says she didn’t have support from her family growing up in Iqaluit and in the city.
“When I was growing up, I had nobody. There was no mentor. I had to get my own funding. I had to find everything all by myself. I started that at 16. And to go to high school, to go to university -- college, not even university, and then university. I did all of that myself,” says Kelly.
“I graduated with honours from high school. I went to college to make video games. And then what had happened is I was-- You know The Matrix? You’re writing code. You dream in f***ing code. That's a true story. I still got friends that do and they're like, ‘I can't get out of the code, bro,’” she says laughing.
She ended up switching over to the McGill School of Social Work and doing the Aboriginal social work program. Mary Kelly has a colourful CV – she’s a certified first responder and firefighter, she’s worked in sexual health, and she has helped build up the ecosystem of community organizations in Montreal that serve marginalized Indigenous people like PAQ and the Native Friendship Centre.
Mary Kelly approaches her work with a sense of humour.
“When I was 28, I was a coordinator for sexual health. I invited 24 participants across Canada. And we all met up in Kuujjuaq. So Cambridge Bay, Gjoa Haven, all sorts of different places. And in Kuujjuaq, I showed up at the airport in a giant yellow condom. And I said, ‘Thanks for coming!’ she tells us, laughing.
After years working in community, Kelly says she had to take a break from intervention work to raise her children. She says motherhood made her “soft.”
“When you have kids, you start feeling stuff,” says Kelly.
“I couldn't handle being a worker. I couldn't bring it home. I couldn't do the job,” she explains, “When me and the father got into an agreement and he took them, then I was able to go and continue. And this is why I'm here. Because they are not with me. I don't bring it home.”
Protecting your community
Now, Kelly puts her energy into fiercely protecting her community. She puts her fluency in Inuktitut and her extensive training to good use on the streets.
Shlee, a fellow Indigenous intervention worker, sat with Kelly for part of her interview. She recounted a night when Kelly helped an Inuit person in distress on the streets who wasn’t being heard.
“I've tried to intervene with this Inuit person before, and it's not my tribe, my nation. And it was so simple. [Mary] came in with the language and he listened and he got his needs met,” says Shlee.
Kelly continues the story, her anger coming through as she remembers being dismissed by the paramedics. “What's f***ed up is these guys were like, ‘We don't want to listen to you!’ I was like, ‘I don't care if you don't want to listen to me! You're going to listen to me because this is my family. You're going to listen to him,’” says Kelly.
The Inuit man was saying he wanted to go to the hospital in Inuktitut, but the paramedics thought he wanted to go to a shelter. After Kelly persisted, they conceded and brought him to get medical care. “Imagine if that was you, and you couldn’t speak the language, and they were going to take you somewhere where you were going to die?” Kelly says to me.
Shortly after Shlee leaves, CJ, an older Inuit woman, comes to sit beside Mary. CJ’s a little shy, but willing to tell me about her love for Mary. “She's awesome, yeah, very awesome. One of the awesomest people I ever met,” says CJ after Mary pulls her in for a hug. After Mary’s interview with La Converse, she and CJ are heading into the night with an all-woman street patrol.
“It’s a good vibe!” exclaims CJ.
“You know what's f***ed up? I'm a full-blown lady, big-boned and bred. I ain’t had no changes. I'm pretty like hell. I got more balls than most men out there,” interjects Mary.
“True story,” CJ affirms.
“The reason why I save lives is because young ladies like her,” says Mary, gesturing to CJ. “If there was ever a man that put her hand on her, that's what's coming,” she says, making a fist.
“Mm. Love you,” says CJ.
"Down at the bottom pushing up"
Even though she loves her work, Kelly feels the weight of helping people living through hard times. Kelly still uses alcohol for release — but she also has spiritual practices and leans on her loved ones for help.
“I've been to detox and treatment at least six times. I let go of some shit when I was in treatment. Because I thought it was me. I carried things. It wasn't me. I let it go inside of a sweat. I let it go right now [in this interview]. I let it go with you,” she says.
“Let's let it go! I learned how to let it go. Because if you cannot express it, good God will carry you for days and will be heavy and you will die,” says Kelly.
“When I'm not drinking, I have to be ‘White Lady Mary,’” she says, exaggerating a straight posture and over-articulating her words. “I'm so tired of being proper. Everybody should be tired of that. Everybody should be able to know what snow tastes like. Nobody should feel bad about sitting on the ground. Nobody,” says Kelly.
Kelly says that the people on the street - her relations - have been a source of support for her, as she is for them. “I’m in a housing program. I was homeless last year. I said [to myself], ‘If I can keep falling and getting up and falling and getting up, there's lots of people that are going to fall and get up.’ I'm not special. I'm strong, but I'm not special. Those guys [out there] are special,” says Kelly, pointing out to the street. “Those are the ones that are like, ‘Mary, you can do it. Don't worry about what's happening. You can do it."
“I never got that from my own family. Nobody thinks that when you sit down with these ‘low lifes,’ they call them…” She speaks the Inuktitut to herself aloud, searching for the right word in English. “‘Hobo,” she laughs. “That's such a funny word. ‘Hobo,’ You would never know that these guys have some strength that you would never understand if you didn't sit with them,” says Kelly. Knowing that others are experiencing hard times motivates Kelly in her work.
“I did that because there are so many people who are so down and out just like me. And we can sit together and we can eat together and we can drink together. And everybody would just pass us by,” she says. As people search for ways to “end homelessness,” Kelly says it’s important for people to work from the ground up. “A true leader does not just step in the front. A true leader is down at the bottom pushing up. That's what I did. To lead means if I can't sit here with you and break bread with you, we don't need you,” says Kelly.