Parallel lives: A lost boy and the mother who loved him but couldn't save him

Angela Gregoire is sorry. She's sorry she forgot about our appointment. It slipped her mind — she's grieving. When we meet, it's just two weeks since her son, Pierre, died, a week since his burial.

She's sorry her house is a mess. But mostly, she's sorry about the way things turned out with Pierre. He was only 28.

Pierre Gregoire died in February of a drug overdose in a KFC bathroom in Toronto. He was homeless, but not hopeless, with dreams of going to culinary school, or maybe making it big in music.

How Pierre ended up so far from home is a long, winding story. Though he and his mother lived thousands of kilometres apart for much of their lives, they walked the same path: from Labrador to Quebec, through the foster care system and battling substance abuse.

The early years

Pierre was Angela's first child, named after her father.

In 1988, young and a single mother, Angela took her father's advice and moved from Sheshatshiu, an Innu village in Labrador, to Sept-Iles, Quebec, where he lived.

"Every firstborn is very respected," Angela said. "We were always together, Pierre and I."

It wasn't always easy, but things were stable, for a time.

Angela says she isn't good with dates and times because she was in a car accident decades ago which affected her memory, but she knows when the trouble started. 

It was around the time fire damaged her home in Sept-Iles. She decided it was time for a change. Moving around was normal to her, dividing her time between two provinces and two sides of her family. This time she decided to move with her son to Montreal. 

He was so mad at me. He told me, 'Mom how come you left me?' ... That was the biggest mistake of my life.- Angela Gregoire

She doesn't go into details, but Angela doesn't deny responsibility for what happened, either. She started using drugs and Pierre was taken into foster care and placed with a Mohawk family in Kahnawake First Nation, just outside Montreal.

"What happened was that, you know, I … I met some people over there. I [hung] out with the wrong crowd. And I … me and Pierre … we lost contact."

'He was a shiny guy'

Pierre moved in with Gloria and Joe Curotte before he was four.

He was a beaming boy, smart and affectionate, seemingly unscathed by whatever problem took him away from Angela.

"He was a fun kid. Just like any other kid his age, you know? Lots of friends," said Joe.

"He was a shiny guy," said Gloria, listing off the people who'd stopped her around town to offer condolences. Pierre had a wide circle of friends.

Joe and Gloria describe a happy childhood. Pierre played hockey and lacrosse — "a natural athlete," according to Joe.

"One year in Little League Baseball ... he played every position except catcher."

Angela came to visit from time to time. The Curottes took vacations in Florida and there was always lots of activity around the house. The couple took in other foster children and had children of their own, too.

"We did want to adopt him," said Joe. "But it didn't work out that way."

It was an idea first raised by social workers, when Pierre was still in middle school. Would he like Joe and Gloria to adopt him? Maybe.  

They went through the process in fits and starts. Sometimes Pierre was interested, sometimes not. Eventually, he decided against it.

"He loved us, for sure. He liked being here and all of that," said Joe. "But it wasn't something that he wanted to do."

Gloria thinks that to Pierre, making it official would mean giving up on Angela and severing ties with his Labrador family.

"The longing he always had of reuniting with mother and living happily ever after." 

'There was always alcohol involved in my life'

Angela has no illusions about how her life turned out. But she didn't think it would happen to Pierre, too.

"I tried to forget about my son. Drugs took control of me. I had nowhere to go and I didn't want to turn to my family."

Just like her son, Angela Gregoire was placed in a foster home from a young age. Her parents split up when she was six or seven, so she and her brothers were taken into care in Quebec.

Her experience of foster care was not like Pierre's; she describes a childhood full of uncertainty, with few rules and an early introduction to substance abuse.

"My brothers, they took care of me. I didn't go to school. Nobody knew that I was alone at the house," she said.

"I didn't know better than that. People coming and going. And drinking — it was very normal to see that in my early childhood." Angela said.

"There was always alcohol involved in my life."

Despite spending most of her childhood away from her biological parents, Angela still describes them lovingly. So, when Pierre was placed with the Currottes, Angela made a move she'd live to regret.

She packed up her things and left Montreal and headed back to Sheshatshiu. Her mother was there, and she was sick. Besides, Angela figured, Pierre would be better off without her, without her problems.

"He was so mad at me. He told me, 'Mom how come you left me?'" she remembered, "That was the biggest mistake of my life."

'There's something you're not telling me'

Years later, Pierre would make the same journey to Labrador to see his own mother.

He was 18 — finished with high school, and he was restless.

All those years, even after she moved, Pierre and Angela kept in touch. Phone calls, visits, pictures in the mail.

Any hard feelings were put aside when Pierre, fresh out of school and trying to find his place in the world decided to move to Sheshashiu.

"It was the greatest moment in my life," Angela said.

At first, Pierre seemed excited about his new life. He called the Curottes and asked them to send his hockey gear, so he could help out with the kids' teams.

Then he asked for some tools, so he could do a few repairs around Angela's house.

"Everybody loved him in here. Everybody loved Pierre," said Angela.

It wouldn't last.

"I see him a couple of times, you know, sad. And I asked him, Pierre, there's something not right? You were very happy … but there's something you're not telling me."

'Pierre was lost'

Pierre had a stock line he'd often use when people asked where he was from. Gloria remembers him saying it as a child because he didn't have a Mohawk name like other kids in Kahnawake.

"I got a French name, I look Chinese, I'm Native," he'd joke. It was easier than explaining.

"Pierre was lost," Angela said, "I don't know what happened to him. He had a home here."

Gloria doesn't understand, either.

All these years she's kept a file of Pierre's letters from Labrador and Toronto, old schoolwork, photos. She cries when she reads a poem Pierre sent to her family years ago, already on the street:

Even now, Gloria doesn't understand why Pierre felt he didn't belong. He was one of many foster children in the Curotte home. Didn't he know they loved him?

"Pierre had to know he wasn't alone," she said. "He wasn't unique in being in foster care."

On the streets

On a warm October day in 2016 an amateur documentary maker approached Pierre Gregoire, who was sitting in a park in Toronto.

He explained he's making a movie about homelessness, and wondered if Pierre would answer some questions. There was $40 in it for him.

"Did you grow up with your parents?" the documentary maker asked.

"No," replied Pierre, then quickly added, "well, yeah. They're my foster parents."

"Were they good to you? Love you?"

"With all their hearts."

The documentary maker asked more about Pierre's family, where he grew up and how he makes money.

Pierre said he'd be a musician one day and everyone would know his name.

"Have you battled addictions to drugs?"

"Yeah," Pierre laughed, as if the question was absurd, then repeated, "yeah!"

He didn't say much more about that, except that he didn't like the idea of treatment because it was too focused on religion.

A few minutes later, he told interviewer he didn't want to play his game anymore. 

It had been 10 years since Pierre left the Curotte home in Kahnawake. He kept in touch, and even visited the Christmas before.

Why he chose to go down a path where it ended his life is beyond me and I still can't wrap my head around it.- Gloria Curotte

He had been in Toronto for a few years. Things had fizzled out in Sheshatshiu.

Angela says Pierre wanted to learn a trade; maybe construction or cooking, and flew to Toronto. There was talk that maybe he would come back to Labrador and work at Muskrat Falls.

She doesn't know when he wound up homeless.

Gloria says Pierre never told her or Joe about his lifestyle. He kept things vague, but it was clear he was living on the streets. They encouraged him to come home and Pierre toyed with the idea, but never made the leap.

Gloria is still trying to work out what happened — why Pierre decided to stay away.

"Pierre had a conscience. He had a good one. Why he chose to go down a path where it ended his life is beyond me and I still can't wrap my head around it, when he could have gotten help."

Valentine's Day, 2017

Angela thinks she knows how Pierre felt — she'd been there too.

From Labrador to Quebec, and back again, all the while chasing parents who left her as a child.

Even after her father called her all those years ago, she still wound up on the streets in Montreal. Even though she's been to treatment, it's been tough to make anything stick. Even though she loves Pierre and he loved her, she couldn't make him stay.

Pierre called her the day before he died: Valentine's Day.

"I said Pierre … I really miss you so much. Why are you over there? You should be over here. You can go to school over here. You don't need to be in Toronto."

He told her he'd think about it.

"I love you mom," he said, "Happy Valentine's."

It isn't clear whether Pierre's overdose was accidental or intentional.

Angela, Gloria and Joe all say they knew Pierre drank, but had no idea he was using hard drugs.

Pierre was homeless, but not alone. He had a large circle of friends in Toronto who held a memorial for him. Joe and Gloria went and heard stories about all the people who had tried to help — to be mothers and fathers and friends to Pierre.

After the service, the Curottes went back to their hotel, near the airport, and tried to spot the plane carrying Pierre's body; to see him one more time.

Pierre is buried in Sheshatshiu, a place he lived for just a few short years.

On Angela's kitchen table there's a candle with Pierre's picture. Sometimes she just stares at it — at the boy she lost. She pulls it close into an embrace. 

"It's like a picture that will never be erased from my heart," she says through tears.

"My son will always be my boy."