As I get ready to go to sunrise service this morning and run around for the next few days I find it necessary to remind myself at times why we are here. Not in a big philosophical “why are we here” question but in the smaller question which is why am I getting up at this ridiculously awful time of the morning?! Which trust me, seems to feel like a giant philosophical question right now. It doesn’t take much, just a few drum beats to remind me. We are here because of Residential School Survivors. We’re here because this was a gift they gave us in their settlement from the Indian residential schools lawsuits. It was important to them that everybody got to tell their story. It was them that gave us the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, not the government, not a specially appointed person or persons, that the prime Minister appointed, but the Survivors. You’ll notice that Survivor is capitalized. This is to pay respect. So we are here to pay respect to the TRC who went to every nook and cranny they possibly could to hear every survivor’s story and it cannot have been easy work. We have heard just the tiniest fraction of the stories. We are also here to remember those who did not come home, to tell their stories.
While the country went into deep shock a few years ago as a result of the discovery of the unmarked Graves of the Missing, and as more and more places revealed their numbers, we were not surprised. We always knew. Yes, we were paralyzed by grief and it was devastatingly sad. But there were moments … it was one of the first in many times that I felt the non-Indigenous community wrapping itself around me. I’ve asked my friends how many of them got phone calls out of the blue from people apologizing to them. “For what?” I would say and they just didn’t know what to do, they needed somebody to talk to and apologize to… “I’m sorry for what happened to your people”
The truth is we all have to deal with this if we are going to move forward. We can’t just keep talking about it. We have 84 calls to action left to implement and it can’t be the government that we leave this up to. It has to be us. It’s like a relationship that you’re trying to figure out if you can make a go of it or if it’s time to quit. And sometimes we throw in the towel. It just doesn’t make sense to work this hard we say. Fair play. Sometimes it doesn’t make sense. But we don’t have that luxury. We don’t get to quit on each other. We don’t get to quit on society. Like it or not, we’re in this for the long haul. And it’s up to us to make this world a better place. Together. All of us side by side. Reconciliation is not my job. Decolonization is not your job. Its OUR jobs. And because we’ve never done this before, nobody gets to be better at it than anybody else, really. We just have to keep trying and trying and trying and little by little we get someplace. I’m grateful that you’re on this journey with us. I also want you to take care to not get too bogged down in the stories that you hear and the sadness. We need you to be strong for us at this time of the year.
We do this so it will never happen again. So today as every day I’ll be keeping very special thoughts and prayers for Murray Sinclair, as he is unwell and in the hospital, and of course, for Niigaan whom we’ve grown very fond of and consider family. And we keep all Survivors close to us.
So whatever you do this weekend please do it with intent. Whether it’s watching a movie or participating in some activities, downtown or saying a quiet prayer. Or calling a friend to say hey.
Do it with love and intent.
Kinanâskomitin (I am grateful for you, we never say goodbye.)
Joan