"I am not asking you to agree, this is an opinion from me based on my life and my experiences as a Survivor who is looking back after eight of years of working on herself as I look at the light at the end"
I am the first one to say that my mother as like many other mothers from that generation did not have the proper skills to parent as an aboriginal woman. My father as a aboriginal man lacked much as well as many of the other aboriginal people of the time. If you were fortunate in the fact that your grandparents kept your parents out of Residential School, then give me this time to explain without jumping in to say that what I was say is not true and count your blessings.
My mother was born to a loving father who she spoke fondly of daily when I was growing up. He had a dog team and dog sleds, he lived off the land, he loved his daughters and his one son. I have recently learned that he followed a path that I am following today and have been drawn to and living by most of my life without knowing, as did my brother Christopher. She of course lost her father when she was young. Her story of life later on is her story and it is not my place to discuss this in detail without the permission of her sisters. I will say though that Residential School had gotten it's unclean hooks into her.
My father's family of course was in a chaotic state at his birth. I know that some relatives of his would have the world believe that they had a wonderful family full of love and greatness but I know the truth. My father was of illegitimate birth and the people around him were cruel toward him. To this day when I ask one of his sisters about him, his father and grandfather they act like it is this big secret and that I and my siblings have no right to find out. This too is a great big piece of stupidity brought on by the Residential Schools invasive presence in their lives and it is obvious by how "The Lord" has them all by the throat not allowing them to think for themselves today.
It is my opinion that many of my once tall strong proud First Nations People of this country have fallen into White religion in a desperate attempt to save their souls due to the fact the Nuns and Priests of the Residential Schools had instilled in them how very evil they were and that to embrace God would save their souls. I can only say that "How can children of this earth be born with even an ounce of evil?"
When I wrote the Honoring my Mother writing, I did it from deep in my heart. I am not and have never been in denial about how I was treated and raised as a child. I was merely saying that my understanding of why it was the way the way it was, was! If Residential School did not have interference into the lives of my People, I would have taken my place in the Midewiwin Lodge alongside my Grandfather and Great-grandfather.
It has been a long road to healing since I first lost my brother and I have said in the past that I would not wish anyone to travel this road like I did for it takes a lot of strength. The highs and lows of looking your present day beliefs in the eye and questioning them with your own sense of spiritual truth can cause so much doubt in ones own existence that you might want to just disappear. It does get better and easier as time goes by though and when you feel your ancestors thoughts and strengths flowing through you bloodlines again it is then that you find peace of mind and a sense of belonging for it is then that you are truly home. It was finding this and embracing who I was and then looking back upon my childhood and recognizing how Residential Schools attempted genocide of my people by vessels such as sexual abuse and incest and feelings of never being worthy into the minds of the children they kidnapped and forced to live there. There was a whole generation of children who stayed in these prisons and upon release, they had to take the skills that were not conducive to raising loving traditional minded family systems that our people had in the past. Instead the family systems and more importantly the closeness we once had that provided the glue to our own spiritual practices and understanding of humanity were tainted by feelings of NEVER being good enough to end where these wardens ended up when we move into the next world.
We are First Nations People and the grandfathers will never turn their back on us no matter how rough a road we may end up walking on in our efforts to find a good path. No matter how lost we might get, we belong beside out ancestors and we shall end up there when our individual journey's come to an end.
It is with this understanding that I embrace my mother and her essence of a human being, I can look aside from the forced path and look ahead to the spiritual path that she left for me to find and it is that for which I am grateful and for why I do feel much love her.
I hope this sheds some light into why I wrote this, it was never to seem like my life was a storybook for it was not and even to this day I would change nothing for this the path I was born into and I have instead chosen to value the lessons along the way. - Anon.
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