Story of the Month: November
Recognize a Blessing in Disguise
Linda Lundstrom grew up in Red Lake, a small, dirt poor gold mining community in frigid northern Ontario, Canada. Like her friends and neighbors, Linda learned to make everything from scratch, from clothes to soap. From these humble beginnings, and as a young as five years old, Linda found her passion in designing clothes. This passion would lead her to becoming an award winning women’s clothes designer, the Eileen Fisher of Canada.
Linda designs clothes for real women’s bodies rather than for runway models. Linda, among many things, sponsors an Authentic Woman model search and names her summer line Sun Goddess Gear. Her trademark is a parka she calls “La Parka.” Not only is this parka beautiful, made in winter colors like ice blue; it also has a story that holds a lesson for us all–how our dark shadows can become our blessings.
One day after work, Linda sat down to watch TV while she breast fed her baby girl. As she flipped through channels, she noticed a journalist interviewing a Native American man. “I thought to myself,” Linda recalls, “why was he talking to that guy?”
The interview triggered a childhood memory about a Native person who had gotten beat up one weekend and ended up in the hospital, unconscious. “I remembered hearing people whispering at school about whether he was going to make it. We called them Indians, and they would get beaten up on Saturday night as a form of entertainment. Often by the police. So when I saw this First Nation’s person, that’s what they prefer to be called, and my reaction to him, I was awakened to my own racism. I grew up in a racist home. My mother wasn’t, but my Dad was constantly deriding them.”
As she watched the interview, another memory surfaced, of the women in the Women’s Auxiliary back in Red Lake proudly talking about how they had stopped Native women from breast feeding in church. “Remembering that, as I nursed my own baby, changed my life, because at that moment I realized I had shame and guilt. I didn’t stand up to the Women’s Auxiliary or find out who beat up the guy, because I was a child. But I had participated through my silence. I started sobbing right there in front of the TV. The floodgates opened and I was being shaken up. I knew I had to deal with it.”
The man interviewed was John Kimbell, a Mohawk who started the Canadian Native Arts Foundation. Kimbell described how the foundation assisted aspiring Native artists on impoverished reservations to develop their talents. This stirred another flood of memories. “I remembered the First Nation’s kids were really good artists.”
Linda immediately called John Kimbell. “I said I want to make a contribution to your organization, because it is doing such good things.’ He said, ‘Let me take you out to lunch.'”
From their luncheon conversation, Linda decided she would d invite Native artists to participate in a competition, and submit drawings to her. “I would choose the best drawings to be embroidered on my La Parka line, because La Parkas were always decorated.” With John’s help, she got art from all over Canada, beautiful drawings with mystical names like grandmother moon, wind spirit woman, dream catcher, all feminine images. Each image came with its own story. “My goal was to honor the art. I wanted to make amends to a people who were terribly abused and discriminated against. When I started this project, my Dad disapproved. I wanted his approval, but it didn’t stop me that he didn’t give it. I don’t hold a grudge towards him because I believe that my creator chose my parents for me and they have given me gifts. Experiencing racism was a gift, experiencing the shame was a gift, because look what it gave me! It healed me.”
Using the Native art for adorning the parkas was a matter of faith, and also a business risk because initially they were slow to sell. But Linda was compelled to stay with it. “Internally, I felt I was being instructed that this is how I was going to heal. Every time I connected with a Native person I felt a little more healed.” La Parka became a hot line and Linda hired Native women to create beaded accessories, remembering from her childhood the beautiful beaded work they did. She sent them fabric and beads to coordinate with the jackets. For years they sold well, until her business went through a hard time and almost closed. She had to let the beading go.
“I told the coordinator of the beaders that I felt really badly. She said, ‘Don’t worry. Mission accomplished.’ I said, ‘What do you mean?’ ‘Charlotte has a job at the Post Office now. She got that job because of beading. When Charlotte started getting a bit of money for beading, she could put food on her table that winter and still have a little money left over. And we noticed she started walking differently. She was walking proudly. So maybe it wasn’t about the beading itself.’
“One day Elijah Harper, a First Nation’s person who fought for the rights of Native people, called me to go to lunch. When we met I said, ‘One of the reasons I said yes to your invitation is that I have to make amends. I guess I’m looking for forgiveness.’ He took my hand and said softly, ‘We forgive you.'”
By facing her own denied dark shadows of racism and the vulnerability of her shame, paradoxically Linda was blessed because it connected her to a higher self–to her compassion, care, and generosity, which deepened her connection to others. It was as if Linda had taken on for herself the task of righting the many wrongs that had nothing to do with her personally. And yet they did. By respecting the First Nation’s people and their work, Linda could again respect herself and her people. Her gestures to make amends also helped First Nation’s people to grow in self-respect. Like the blessing Namaste, Linda was blessed by seeing the Divine in all of us.
Iron Butterflies are wise enough to see a blessing in disguise.