The Ghost of Canada Present

Grief doesn’t always begin as a process that is the result of the death of a Loved One. Sometimes grief begins as a result of a broken heart, and that usually never ends. -Carol Rose GoldenEagle, The Narrows of Fear

One of Brent’s friends recently told Brent a gruesome forgotten story about some local residential schools years ago. It was as horrible and heartbreaking as all the other stories. What made it different to me is that it took place in my community. It makes it personal. Pete is in his 80´s and this story was something  that happened to his father, so it’s safe to guess that it took place almost 100 years ago. The time frame really doesn’t matter. 

The truth really does. I’m not going to go into details here but you can private message me if you want to hear more about this heartbreaking truth. Sometimes my heart feels like it can’t hold more heartbreaking things. Then I start imagining what it must’ve been to be the parents of one of these children who abruptly and silently disappeared from their life forever. Then I decide I don’t know heartbreak.

I spent an hour or two of this Canada Day talking with my husband about our province’s history and its newly discovered mass graves.  That conversation left a haze of melancholy hanging in the stifling air. 

A fist bump from a First Nations stranger who told me I wasn’t racist and that I was pretty cool for a white girl eased my survivor’s guilt a little. The same man told me he and I would each keep loving other people’s children, that that was a way to move forward. 

His words were striking in the face of the renewed grief that Indigenous communities across the country are facing today. This man truly believes that Every child matters. The ones who endured the worst atrocities in the past. The ones who are alive today. Every child matters. 

I know you all have your precious white babies to care for in their perfect little nurseries, but don’t forget to cry tonight over someone else’s babies who weren’t treated as if they were precious and who didn’t have even their most vital needs met. because every child matters.