APTN National News
A 63 year-old elder hung himself the day before his hearing for residential school compensation.
The tiny remote island community, just off Vancouver Island, is now crying out for help.
APTN National News reporter Rob Smith has this story.
My deepest condolences and sympathy to Mrs Lexi Charlie and the Penelakut First Nation Community on the loss of someone who is going to be sadly missed: On the grounds the Canadian Government repeat the sexual assaults on the residential school survivors by having them relive their horrific experiences of abuse. Shame, shame, shame, shame on the Canadian Government and the Lawyers who represent the Indian Residential School Settlement funds. With much sorrow and sadness, Kokum White Wolf
(I found that when I’m triggered or read a tragic experience of one of our people, I use writing as a tool, which has helped me immensely. I wrote a piece after reading about our elder who left this world, )
When One Door Closes. Survivors Reaching Out
Prayers to our family in Penelekut… prayers to all survivors…For so many of, even our own people, it is difficult to understand the minds of a residential school survivor.
We,
as children, walking through those gigantic doors of the schools for
the first time? We already know,and can feel the heaviness, the fear
and the well, yes, evil. We already are preparing for how to best
survive. But often it wasn’t enough. When things happen, oddly enough,
we keep going. We hide events away in parts of our bodies we don’t
have to feel. In our muscles, our stomach, our bones probably. Even
after coming out of the schools we don’t feel free, because we are held
down somehow, by the weight of all that we have stored away. The
problem is, all that stuff is still there and we fear the day that
Pandora’s Box opens.
The road we walk is a hard one…
the hills we climb seems insurmountable. Sending for the IAP forms, we
wait for a giant boulder to come through the mail. Once ‘it’ arrives, a
majority of us hold it like it is a weapon ready to go off.
We
leave this boulder sitting on a shelf collecting dust for years. The
moment those forms, are in our homes, our lives are altered, forever.
The road turns into the rocky side of a cliff. We stumble along
blindly, making our way through life. Who can understand, when we cannot
ourselves? And we don’t want to burden anyone.
When
we do reach out for help through counseling? We need support, to deal
with what happens after that one hour, where the reality hidden away in
our blood turns into acid burning our souls. Even prayer we cannot seem
to know how to trust.
And our elders. Our parents.
They were so young, taken away by force, not speaking the language….
punished just for speaking, & getting hurt heart, mind, soul and
body for just speaking, for being “indian,” for .. just being.&
living in a foreign world that once was ours.
Much is
coming back, Language-slowly; Spirituality-being last; full pride-seem
to escape us…but for survivors what is it, that is missing? That
which holds us back from being fully whole? Part of it, I think is –
despite the apology, that a majority of Canadians and especially the
Canadian government don’t know, don’t care & still assume that we
are oh-so-privileged and a hyper-dependent people living off their
taxes. How do we live in a society that sees us still climbing out from
under a rock? & we have to walk with them daily on the street, in
the shopping malls, gas stations, driving, on the bus, in taxis, at the
doctor’s office, in the hospitals, restaurants, casinos, movies,
concerts…to the corner store…. crossing the street, with alll those
eyes watching our every move, it seems.
Everything we
learn, or teach ourselves about confidence, healing, letting go &
pride, about our rights, to stand up for each other, and on and on…
this pride… we have to fight our own feelings to keep this pride from
gasping for air… to keep it afloat above that which we get from
society in our day to day, and from our own people, who have learned too
well from those schools & government, how to hurt our own people,
the art of the put-down, the abuses, through hiding away, thus affecting
others through alcohol and now drugs… We suffer each other, &
this still new mental and emotional illness that fights against our
good. For those who are so truly hurting, where do they turn?
Our
big leaders need to come right down to the core. And our band
councils; I believe, to run for band council, that the new guidelines to
run should include, must have post secondary, counseling certificate,
have their own healing program in place. Education, in varying areas to
be fully there, and to know what the people need, .. To be more
objective about their roles. In each ‘band,’ the chief and council,
besides counselors, are key role models who can set into place, that
which their people need.
If our people can wait for
prayer to work, and knowing that reaching out to those we can trust,
finding that great counselor, if one does work, there is a better one
around the corner, calling the residential school survivors line is such
a viable choice in the middle of the night! Even talking to your
doctor can bring about a turn of events. Don’t give up! When one door
closes, another one opens! A tired cliché but it is so true.
Each
day that one works on healing… yes, at first it opens another layer…
but as layer by layer is let go…worked through… what happens is the
world begins to look a little brighter. The dark clouds shed it’s dark
rain. The mad crowd of people walking towards you on the street, become
individual people with their own stories and lives. The cranky bank
teller or cashier? Well, gee, SHE must have had a bad day.
Our
perspectives begin to change and one day, a magic thing happens. The
day that we wonder, how we can help someone else… or wonder what can I
do to be a voice…. Even just wondering about these things opens up
more doors to healing and is a sign that who ‘once was a warrior’ has
been one all along.
O’siem
Kat Norris.
Lyackson/Nez Perce
Kuper Island Residential School
https://www.facebook.com/notes/on-my-healing-journey/when-one-door-closes-a-survivors-reaching-out/10151821209440114