Opinion | Today, deepen the family ties that colonial evil tried to devour

To indigenous peoples on this inaugural National Truth and Reconciliation Day, I encourage you to spend time with your families. Because it was the family unit that the evils of the residential school era tried to destroy.

I cannot understand the pain endured by generations of families whose children were forcibly ripped from their arms and carried away. Schools left separated brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers who longed for their children.

I think of my youngest daughter, she is 3 years old and I feel completely devastated. Knowing that she is the age that Indian agents, a priest or a police officer might have come and stealing her from me is beyond comprehension.

I tell myself that I would give my life; I’d fight like hell if someone tried to take my baby. But really, how do I know what it was like? There was no choice. It was jail or hand over his son. If the parents go to jail, the child was taken anyway.

There was control over the First Nations, all empowered by racism. Genocide, land grabbing, extinction of food resources, massive segregation on reserve lands. If they left the reservation, they were killed or imprisoned. Starving. Ill. Oppressed. They lived in a constant state of survival mode. How much fight would you have left in you?

Some parents never saw the beautiful faces of their children again. Because they died in schools.

Those who survived barely survived. Those children who did not receive love but hate for all that they were, went on to have families of their own. And another generation of unloved babies lived the consequences of the failed and twisted project of colonial government.

This was not long ago. He was 16 in 1996 when the last residential school closed. This was happening while Canadians lived their lives, apparently without the majority of the population knowing that modern concentration camps in the form of residential schools housed indigenous children.

But they did not completely strip the survivors of love. These hearts had hope. It is embedded in our constitution as human beings to live and recover from horrors like genocide.

The survivors and their descendants are recovering and regaining the strength of their spirits.

Enjoy this day. Go and sit with your parents, your siblings, your aunts and uncles, your children and grandchildren. Deepen those ties that colonial evil tried to devour. Forgive where you need to forgive because that poison of bitterness will only consume you. Our power as indigenous people is in our healing, in living our truth and sovereignty. It is to recover prayers and traditions and transmit them without fear to future generations.

Speak your language with your family. Kiss your babies, hug your parents, and enjoy taking back what they tried to take from you.

This day is “to honor the survivors, their families and communities and to ensure that public commemoration of the history and legacy of residential schools remains a vital component of the reconciliation process.”

So for Canadians commemorating it and teaching family / friends about the importance of reconciliation, I think this is a starting point. A federally recognized holiday is a big problem, even if some provinces and organizations choose not to recognize it.

Now that, to me, is like the province slapping an army veteran in the face. Residential school children and their families have been through a war too! I want Canada to remember this war.

Reach. Hear the story of a survivor. Read TRC’s calls to action, pick at least one, and commit to doing it. This is a step-by-step process, but we will accomplish it together.