Love story’s heartbreaking ending

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 10/04/2017 (3132 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

When George and Melinda Wood began searching for their daughter, they vowed to keep scouring Winnipeg until they found her. Days became weeks, as they looked for Christine. Seasons changed, and a new year turned over.

Now, after nearly eight months, their search is ended. They have found a terrible, heartbreaking answer.

On Saturday, police confirmed that Christine was dead, and that they had arrested a 30-year-old man for her murder. I choose not to repeat his name in this column. This is not about him, and my words will not spotlight an alleged killer.

These words are for Christine and her parents. These words are to honour their quiet determination. In their long and desperate search, George and Melinda Wood showed the human spirit more clearly than any violent act ever could.

By now, the details of Christine’s August disappearance have been thoroughly reported: one Friday night, the 21-year-old left a St. James hotel where the family was staying on a medical trip from Bunibonibee Cree Nation.

She never returned and never spoke to her parents again, even though she’d been so close with her mother.

There were so many rumours, so many shadowy and uncertain leads: people reported sightings in houses, in apartments, on the street. George and Melinda followed each of those flickers of hope. So did Winnipeg police.

None of them led to Christine, so the parents kept searching. The story of their search deserved to be told.

In October, six weeks after Christine went missing, I spent a few days getting to know George and Melinda. They invited me to join their nightly search, and offered me a seat in their truck. For hours, we drove and just talked.

They told me about their life in their northern First Nation. They told me about their grandchildren, and funny tales from bingo, and about their house on the lake where George took photos of aurora borealis glinting over the water.

We laughed a lot, believe it or not. That was important. They needed the laughter, to help keep them going.

Because in the wind-bitten darkness, Melinda would squint to make out the passing silhouettes of young women. It was never Christine, and every time Melinda tried to talk about her daughter, her voice would tremble and fall silent.

George and Melinda did not want to be here. They did not love Winnipeg, with all of its problems. They gave several press conferences, which Melinda found overwhelming: so many cameras surrounding her, recording her sobbing.

But they thought the press conferences might help lead them to Christine, so they held them. They thought the city might show them Christine, so they stayed here. Whatever it took, they did it. Whatever media needed, they gave it.

• Read Melissa Martin’s story from Oct. 1, 2016: Searching to end the heartbreak

If Winnipeggers could know George and Melinda through my story, I hoped, maybe they would search for Christine too. Maybe folks would examine the faces around them, eyes peeled for Christine’s red hair and chipped tooth.

There was also this: when Christine vanished, it ripped her parents from their quiet life and threw them into the bowels of the city. Even if telling their story couldn’t end their search, I hoped it would at least bring understanding.

See, some people shrugged off Christine’s disappearance. They wrote me letters full of assumptions. I won’t dwell on them here, except to say that some of the comments I received were dismissive; others were outright racist and ugly.

How many Indigenous women will be swallowed up by this city, before we finally cleanse this toxic thinking?

There was hope, you know, and I felt it blooming. I’ve never been good at being a dispassionate reporter, so let me confess: I have thought about the Woods every day since October. I wanted so badly to help bring Christine home.

But one night, in a coffee shop in St. Boniface, one of Christine’s friends showed me a Facebook message he’d sent her less than 24 hours after she vanished. Six weeks later, the message was unopened; she’d never even read it.

More than any other fact in the case, that unread message sat like a rock in my gut. At the time, the police line was that Christine might be facing “personal challenges.” Even a struggling young woman might have at least looked.

Now we know why she never read that message. Now we know that no amount of searching would have kept her safe. But this tragic coda to George and Melinda’s long search cannot strip away their strength, and their grace.

Once, I hoped telling their story would bring their daughter home. Now, I hope that knowing George and Melinda will allow Winnipeggers to share in their grief. We cannot bear this pain for them, but we can honour what it means.

This is a story about violence. The police mentioned blood in a house. It’s not something I can stand to think about much, not right now. A life flowed out, a light flickered out, and its last act of defiance was leaving a stain to be found.

But that is not how I will remember what happened to Christine Wood, or the months she was missing.

Because this is also a story about love, incredible love, a love that the Woods carried like a torch into darkness. It is a love that called them forward, lighting every hurting place in the city, determined and resilient and relentless.

From the day their daughter vanished, to the day they received terrible news from police, George and Melinda never gave up on Christine. They fought for her the only way they could: with their eyes, their time and their presence.

Love, this is a story about love. Whatever the fate of the accused, I will remember it that way too.

For nearly eight months, two parents searched Winnipeg’s streets. They did not find their daughter. Yet in their search, they did all there was left to do for her: they ensured that Christine was not, and will not be, forgotten.

 

melissa.martin@freepress.mb.ca