Focus on the family bonds colonial wickedness devoured
To Indigenous peoples on this inaugural National Day of Truth and Reconciliation, I encourage you to spend time with your families. Because it was the family unit that the evils of the residential school’s era attempted to destroy.
I cannot fathom the pain endured by generations of families whose children were forcibly ripped from their arms and taken far away. The schools left brothers and sisters estranged, mothers, fathers yearning for their children.
I think of my youngest child, she is 3, and I feel completely broken. To know she is of the age that Indian agents, a priest or police officer could’ve come and stole her from me is beyond comprehension.
I tell myself I would give my life; I would fight like hell if anyone ever tried to take my baby.
But really, how do I know what it was like? There was no choice. It was either jail or give your child up. If the parents go to jail, then the child was taken anyway.
There was control over First Nations, all empowered by racism. Genocide, land grabs, food resources extinguished, mass segregation onto reserve lands. If they left the reserve they were killed or jailed. Starved out. Diseased. Oppressed. They were living in a constant state of survival mode. How much fight would you have left in you?
Some parents never saw the precious faces of their children again. Because they died at the schools.
The ones who did make it out alive hardly survived. Those children who received no love but hate for everything they were went on to have families of their own. And another generation of unloved babies lived out the consequences of the failed and twisted colonial government project.
This wasn’t long ago. I was 16 in 1996 when the last residential school closed. This was going on while Canadians were living their lives, apparently unbeknownst to most of the population that modern-day concentration camps in the form of residential schools were housing Indigenous children.
But they didn’t strip the survivors of love completely. These hearts held hope. It’s embedded into our makeup as human beings to live through and recover from horrors like genocide.
The survivors and their descendants are on the mend and gaining the strength of their spirits back.
Enjoy this day. Go and sit with your parents, your siblings, your aunts and uncles, your children and grandchildren. Deepen those bonds that colonial wickedness tried to devour. Forgive where you need to forgive because that poison of bitterness will only consume you.
Our power as Indigenous is in our healing, in living our truth and sovereignty. It’s reclaiming prayers and traditions and fearlessly passing them on to future generations.
Speak your language with your family. Kiss your babies, hug your parents and relish in taking back what they tried to take from you.
This day is “to honour survivors, their families, and communities and ensure that public commemoration of the history and legacy of residential schools remains a vital component of the reconciliation process.”
So, for Canadians who do commemorate it and teach their family/friends about the importance of reconciliation, I believe this is a starting point. A federally acknowledged holiday is a big deal, even if some provinces and organizations are choosing not to acknowledge it.
Now that, to me, is like the province slapping an army veteran in the face. Residential school kids and their families have come through a war, too! I want Canada to remember this war.
Reach out. Listen to a survivor’s story. Read the TRC Calls to Action, pick at least one and commit to doing it.
This is a step-by-step process, but we’ll get there together.