Reconciliation is a personal journey

Reconciliation is a word that's been cropping up in the media lately.

The word is often mentioned in relation to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada's recently released interim report and a publication entitled They Came for the Children: Canada, Aboriginal Peoples, and Residential Schools.

Since 2009, the TRC has collected more than 3,000 personal stories from residential school survivors across Canada. This report is what they've produced so far.

Gathering these stories is a painful process but it needs to be done. As with many tragedies, we need to remember in order to avoid repeating the mistakes that were made. Residential schools have always been a tough subject matter for me to write about. I used to think they didn't have an effect on me, considering my direct family line back to my great-grandpa and great-grandma never went to a residential school.

But I was wrong.

Sure, I grew up without my language and cultural knowledge, but what was worse was growing up seeing so many abusive relationships, and having parents who didn't know how to show affection. It was only later in life when I became an adult that we've learned to say we love each other.

But it wasn't their fault.

I've come to realize much of the physical and emotional abuse put upon me was passed down from the generations before who had no way to understand what was done to them. Remember, they were only children.

This is how those children were raised so it's how they raised us too.

Sometimes it takes decades to resolve images of the past.

One clear memory I have is getting my head dunked repeatedly in a sink of water. This act was perpetrated by a residential school survivor -- one of my mom's boyfriends.

Another memory is being lifted off the ground by my ears and yelled at in my face by a family member who went to residential school. I didn't understand so many things when I was a child, but I do now. This is part of my legacy, but my past doesn't define me.

These memories may sound bad but they are bedtime stories compared to some of the ones I've heard from some people who actually went to residential schools. Some of those stories have kept me up at night.

Is it any wonder we've got so many addictions issues in our communities?

Some children couldn't overcome the abuses they suffered.

And there are still abusers in our communities who are quietly spreading their sickness -- especially sexual abuse.

Reconciliation is a personal journey.

Today, I sometimes sit and watch my baby daughter play. I wonder how hard it must have been for parents to let their children go off to a residential school at four years old. How could they go on living?

I've learned good things, too. Like only I am responsible for what path my life takes. It hasn't always been easy, but it's been easier than most. I am one of the lucky ones compared to some of my relatives.

The knowledge I've gathered isn't to cast blame but to learn how and where the abuses came from. Without truth there can be no reconciliation.

And before there can be reconciliation there has to be grieving. Just like the abuse, it could take many more years and several generations to come to terms with the after effects.

I said it years ago and I'll say it again -- residential schools were a cultural genocide.

Let the stories and the grief come out. Reconciliation will follow in due time.

Try to read or listen to one person's story if you can. Reconciliation isn't only for aboriginal people, but for all Canadians to understand how devastating to aboriginal people this forced assimilation was.

We must reconcile that this is part of our shared history. Then we can all move forward.

Colleen Simard is a Winnipeg writer.

colleen.simard@gmail.com

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition March 3, 2012 A16