A group of elders leads this procession; they hold drums and carry baskets of roses. The people behind them are singing. They carry banners and signs. Some are smiling and laughing, and some are crying. The parade stops outside of a cheap Gastown hotel. The elders smudge the doorway with sage and sing a prayer song. A native woman died here, in this hotel. They place bunches of roses on the street outside the hotel, a valentine for her. She is one of over seventy women that have gone missing on the downtown eastside since 1975, my lifetime.