Maggie and Tim: A residential school survivor & her son who died on Chilliwack’s streets
Part one of a two-part series on a young man’s tragic death and his mother’s survival through hardship
This two-part series about Maggie and Tim first appeared online in January and February 2020. A story about an Indigenous mother who lives proudly with determination despite her many hardships endured over her 57 years, and a son who didn’t survive his own troubles over his 25 years.
Even those who did not know Tim Postma might recognize his face from the streets in the downtown Chilliwack area.
He wasn’t a troublemaker or a criminal, but Tim was homeless, struggled with substance abuse issues and, when he was in Chilliwack, wandered the streets with friends from Central Community Park to Salish Park, spending time at Ruth & Naomi’s and on the streets in between.
He didn’t live with his mother Maggie Smith who did her best to take care of him when she could, working five, six, sometimes even seven days a week at her job at a retirement residence. She is well known at her local coffee shop, the Salish Plaza Starbucks, where staff say she often comes in to buy her regular drink and sometimes even drop off home-baked treats.
Maggie didn’t let Tim live with her at her rental apartment given his increasingly problematic drug use, but she looked for him on the streets to check in on him in between her shifts. She would let Tim come to shower, have a meal, even sleep once in a while at her apartment.
One day in the days leading up to Tim’s death in somewhat uncertain circumstances in a commercial trailer in an alley behind a business on Jan. 22, 2020, Maggie said Tim was at her place. Tim had a shower while Maggie made supper for the two of them.
But Tim’s desperation and addiction became too much, and he tried to take Maggie’s TV.
“I said, ‘I can help you but I can’t help you that way,’” Maggie said in an interview.
“That was the last time I saw him or talked to him.”
While for most of his troubled years, Tim’s issues were with alcohol and marijuana, only relatively recently did Maggie find him using of needles. Naive on the use of any drugs, Maggie was shocked yet non-judgmental. She wanted Tim to get better, wanted to point him in the right direction, but never by a pointing finger.
Tim's death
It was at approximately 3 a.m. on Jan. 22 when RCMP officers on patrol downtown smelled smoke and began to search for the source, according to Chilliwack RCMP spokesperson Cpl. Mike Rail.
The fire was found in an alley off Victoria Avenue in a commercial trailer between two business.
Tim Postma was found inside the trailer, unresponsive. He was transported to Chilliwack General Hospital where he later died.
I was able to read the official BC Coroners Service report on Postma’s death a year and a half after this story first appeared, in June 2021. Before that, his mother was told he died of hypothermia and asphyxiation. While needles were found around him and it was likely he was consuming drugs, Maggie didn't think he overdosed.
He died of smoke inhalation inside a storage container on Jan. 22, 2020 after, the coroner determined, lighting a fire to keep warm.
Toxicological testing found Tim had the presence of fentanyl in his blood in a range where therapeutic and lethal levels overlap, and methamphetamine at recreational use levels. His cause of death, however, was from the inhalation of the products of combustion.
Put simply, on that cold January night, Tim crawled into the storage container to keep warm and to use drugs. The coroner determined he went unconscious or slept and, not seeing him, the owner of the storage container inadvertently locked Tim inside. When Tim awoke hours later, “he apparently lit a bag of sawdust on fire likely for warmth.”
Given that this sawdust was designed for food smoking, it produced a great deal of smoke in the enclosed container.
Coroner Lucy Pridgeon ruled the death to be accidental.
For Maggie, reading the report made her cry but it did answer questions about what happened.
“That evening one of my friends saw Tim at 12:30 p.m.,” she said. “He was talking about how cold he was and how he needed a place to stay and he couldn’t stay there so he went to that bin. I don’t blame anyone.
“Tim used to hide in places I didn’t know and always worried he wouldn’t be found if something like this happened. But it is so sad how he was alone.
”My family and I are thankful for the help. I know it is difficult for [first responders] as well when they can’t revive them.”
Maggie has been grieving the loss of her son for over a year, and this news brought it all back. Still, she says knowing what happened is all part of the grieving process.
“Things were pretty bad for Tim, I guess. But he is not suffering anymore.”
Back to January 2020
Maggie agreed to talk to me about Tim’s life and death, a conversation joined by Tim’s older sister Sarah and older brother Jared.
All too often there are reports of a body found, or an overdose victim, or a missing person, and sometimes there are no reports at all about those things. Maggie agreed it was worthwhile to say a little something about Tim, a human being, a son, a boyfriend, a brother, a hurting young man, to put a face to the opioid crisis and homelessness and mental health issues and the tragedy facing too many people in Canada.
“I was trying to help him,” Maggie said. “I told him there was help, it’s just that he was not ready for help.”
Maggie worked long shifts often six days a week, but after or before she would often go looking for Tim and just sit with him and other street people in places like Central Community Park. Sometimes his friends would ask her if she had Tylenol-3s, but Tim would always make it clear to his friends that his mother did not do drugs.
Maggie said she found it informative to be with Tim, if briefly, on the streets with others suffering as he did.
“That was great because it really taught me a lot about unconditional love, getting to know people and listen,” she said. “Let them talk and get to know them instead of being judgmental.”
According to those on the streets, Tim was a positive force, a bright light would was friendly and helpful to others.
His sister Sarah said she knew that Tim always made sure “his bros” were taken care of. His brother Jared said that when things were going well and he was with his girlfriend, they travelled and were living life to the fullest.
Maggie herself always has a smile, her tiny frame walks around town to her work and to Starbucks, often delivering homemade goodies to people she knows. She endures with that smile and with strength despite a history tainted by Canada’s terrible past with residential schools. She was taken from her home in Port Douglas at the age of five. She also suffered sexual abuse in foster care, and later says domestic abuse in her relationship with Tim’s father. (Tim’s father John denies any such abuse occurred, only that they had a troubled marriage unresolved even through counselling.)
But she blames none of that on Tim’s situation, let alone his death on the streets. For now she is trying to grieve as best as she can, but until she has Tim’s ashes it isn’t easy.
“Today has been a good day,” she said while chatting at Starbucks. “Yesterday I broke down.”
Walking to take a photo at Salish Park with Maggie, Jared and Sarah, another regular from the streets walked by. At first he asked if they had a dollar. Then he saw Tim’s brother and asked, “Is that you Jared?”
He looked shocked and emotional as he expressed his sadness at the death of Tim on the streets.
“He was my friend,” this broken young man said, tears in his eyes.
• For part two of Maggie and Tim click here, with more on Maggie’s experiences at the St. Mary’s Indian Residential School and how that affected her life.
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Paul J. Henderson
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