Lynn Lau
Northern News Services

Inuvik (Sep 10/01) - When emotions ran high at the Gwich'in Tribal Council annual general meeting last month, one woman took the microphone and said to the hushed crowd: "Love one another."

Elizabeth Greenland: "What did getting mad do for me?"

It was 81-year-old Elizabeth Greenland, in her powerful yet gentle voice, telling everyone what mothers have always told their children, but what all of us forget in the heat of the moment: talk nice, don't get mad.

Greenland raised nine children and nine of her 18 grandchildren. After all this time, she's gotten used to putting the message out. It's a message she learned from her own struggle with anger.

News/North: Why do you talk about anger?

Elizabeth Greenland: My husband died in 1980. He drank a lot. And I have nine kids and they were all getting big and going to school.

I saw my husband drinking and I thought, I'm going to stop him, but it just got more anger. I got mad, and started to drink. Around 1960, I started to drink.

So I did like that until my husband left me. For three years, he didn't live with me, and then he got sick and in four days, he died.

One day, I find out I'm sitting home alone. What did getting mad do for me? Not a thing. That's what I mean when I say anger don't do us good. Anger is not going to fix everything good for us.

N/N: How did you deal with anger?

EG: I asked God to take it away from me. I asked him to quit smoking and drinking and the anger.

Between 1970 and '71, I quit that smoke and drinking.

N/N: Does that mean you never, ever get mad now?

EG: I don't get mad. Around about three years now, I not doing that. But every once in a while, I get like that. That anger is with me yet.

Sometimes I get like this, why don't they do this, why don't they do that. It's inside me, and I'm just hurting.

So I have to get it out. Say something. And I say something.

One of my aunties said to me, 'When somebody gets mad, don't say nothing. Just don't say nothing.' If you say something, a bad word is going to come out of your mouth, and that's what happened to me this morning. I have to cry for it.

But I say right away I ask God to forgive me. Nobody can be good all the time.

When I look at myself, I'm different than long ago. I was a really, really cranky woman, like that kind of woman that don't care.

N/N: How are things different now?

EG: My son, Sonny, he used to be drunk since last year, January. He was working in Norman Wells. One time, somebody phoned. I answered -- him. He was just drunk and he was crying, drunk. He said, 'Mom, I want to go home.'

I said 'Sonny, I'll do something for you.' That night, I phoned our chief here. He phoned back, said Sonny is going to be on the plane tomorrow -- he fixed it. I said if you fix it, I'll give you the money back.

So Sonny came back the next day. I remember he lay there. It took us a while. He sobered up. You know, he's sober now, and he says, 'I'll never ever take it again.'

That's what I mean, we get angry, that doesn't help.

But we do something good and kind, that comes out.

N/N: What happens when you get mad?

EG: I get mad, I hurt myself. When you go like that, your chest gets tight. That's stress. My doctor tell me I get sick with stress.

I talk to one of my friends in (Fort) McPherson on the phone. When I finish, she says to me, 'Good you talked about it, you'll be okay now.'

It's good like this. You don't have to be mad, you talk real nice, talk about it, and it comes out.

N/N: What can people do to deal with their anger?

EG: Maybe if you have a chance, talk to someone else about it. And really pray about it.