Author and musician Tom Wilson, is photographed at book publisher Random House on Oct. 30, 2017.Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail
As an adult, Tom Wilson is an acclaimed musician best known as the vocalist and guitarist for the band Junkhouse. As a kid, he always suspected that Bunny and George Wilson, the woman and man who raised him in Hamilton, Ont., weren't his birth parents. But any attempt Wilson made to learn the truth was always immediately shut down.
"There are secrets I know about you that I'll take to my grave," Bunny once told him, a detail he recounts in his haunting, hopeful, new memoir, Beautiful Scars: Steeltown Secrets, Mohawk Skywalkers and the Road Home. It was only five years ago, at the age of 53, that Wilson learned who his birth mother is – and that she is Mohawk. In an interview with The Globe and Mail's Dave McGinn, Wilson discussed discovering his Indigenous heritage, the pain of being lied to and why he's still not at peace.
You were a pretty rebellious kid. Do you connect that behaviour to the suspicion you had that Bunny and George weren't your birth parents?
Completely. To go along with that rebellion I also had a huge amount of guilt that Bunny laid on me, because I thought George was blinded in the Second World War. There was always that narrative of, "How can you be doing this? How can you do this to your father? He fought in the war for you." That's a weight for a six-year-old kid. But I just have to stop myself right there because Bunny and George Wilson threw down for me. They gave me a chance, a fighting chance. You can only ask for a fighting chance.
When you did find out who your birth mother was, how did it change you?
There's no life boat in it. There's no safe place for me, still. My mother basically acted as my cousin my entire life, was always there, was always in my life. The moment that she turned to me and said, "Tom, I don't know how to tell you this and I'm sorry but I'm your mother," there was no relief.
There seems to be so little anger or bitterness in the moment you found out who your birth mother was.
There was a lot of anger. The anger was really that people lied to me. Nobody likes being lied to. I had to come out the other end. You have to put it in to perspective. And the perspective was that I was loved and – I'm going to say it again – given a chance.
Do you ever hear from other people who were adopted?
Every night. Every night I'm on stage and I swear to God there's not a night that goes by where I tell a little bit about the book and the story. Everybody has a connection to an adoption story. I had a biker crying in the lobby of a theatre in Winnipeg, Manitoba, saying, "I know your story. It's my story, too." It's not like you can put a Band-Aid on it and it's going to heal. It's a lifetime of a journey for people who are adopted.
You talk in the book about being in high school and kids racially taunting you, calling you "Indian," and then in your 50s you find out you're Mohawk. How did that affect your sense of identity?
I'm not running into the burning fire, you know what I mean? I grew up in Hamilton. My joke is, I grew up thinking I was a big, white, puffy, sweaty Irish guy and I'm actually a big, puffy, sweaty Mohawk guy. I'm not like some white guy who's going to jump in a sweat lodge. I'm 58. I'm hoping I've got 30 more years here for that to be able to come through the ether for me.
I'm a little more sensitive, not about what people say about me, but more about social commentary. Things like, "That's the biggest mass murder in American history." Did you guys forget about Wounded Knee? This is a sad situation, but come on now. Or, "Please, are you guys still talking about residential schools?" The last residential school closed in 1996. You kind of want to come out swinging sometimes. Maybe this is part of the process, but I'm a little bit more sensitive about that kind of thing.
What are your regrets as a father?
Regrets? I think that we always wish we paid more attention to the moment. I regret that I didn't live in the moment more as the kids were growing up. Your 30s you're hustling, you're working really hard and for the most part it's when your kids are growing up and they're mostly watching your ass walk out the door most of the time. And then you get in to your 50s and you think, I wish I hadn't had worked that way. I wish I would have relaxed a little more.