I arrived at Carleton University, Ottawa, to register for the Truth and Reconciliation event. The clerk at the front desk couldn’t find my registration. I had to wait. I went back to sit on a bench across the room. The theme of the event during that week was about residential schools and it was making me uneasy. I had attended the Cecilia Jeffrey residential school in Kenora, Ont., as a young child. It was managed by the Presbyterian Church in Canada.
As I sat there watching people coming in to register, I began to feel myself being pulled into my past. I felt like I was back at the residential school being dropped off as a young child. A strange place. Strange people. Strange language. I started shaking. I couldn’t hold myself together. I began crying and wrapped my arms around myself. No one came to help me. I was alone with my nightmares of the past. I had the phone number of the residential school crisis line and phoned them. The nice lady over the phone helped to ground me, to bring me back to the present.
A few minutes later, the organizer of our group arrived. She came to where I was sitting. I could hear her, but couldn’t quite focus on her face. I told her to keep talking to me, please keep talking to me. When I was more settled, she sorted out the registration problem and got me to my room to rest.
I travelled to Ottawa as a guest of the Presbyterian Church for the closing ceremonies of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in early June. After eight years and seven large events across the country, the TRC was going to present its findings. There were many scheduled parades and ceremonies and other activities planned for the historic event.
It was an emotional week for me. I felt like I travelled back to my past for hopes of a better future.
The week before I went to Ottawa, I returned home to Kenora to have a chat with my ancestors in my home community. I went to the two memorial sites in Kenora where there were once two residential schools. One was run by the Presbyterian Church and the other by the Catholic Church. At the two memorial sites, I gathered soil and moss in two cloth bags. For me it represented the tears of my ancestors. I was going to carry the bags with me during the TRC event.
Then I went to find Nancy Morrison, a respected elder in my Aboriginal community. Nancy also went to a residential school as a child. She was also a childhood friend of my mother’s. Both she and my mom attended St. Mary’s Indian School. She gave me a hug and shared kind words and much needed support for my trip.
I think of myself as mentally healthy, but the event opened old wounds and new memories surfaced. The trip required strength and support from the friends I was travelling with. There were uplifting moments, and healing moments for me.
During the first day, there were aboriginal drummers and smudging. That smell of the burning herbs was comforting for me. I also had a handful of sage that was given to me by Rev. Margaret Mullin of Winnipeg Inner City Missions before my trip to help me cope with any anxieties.
About 10,000 people participated in the Reconciliation Walk through Ottawa on Sunday. The residential school survivors were wearing red shirts. There were indigenous women wearing traditional ribbon skirts. I saw men wearing headdresses and ribbon shirts. All manners of traditional dress. Aboriginal women wearing their hair in braids or letting it flow freely down their back. Men wearing their hair in braids. They wore proudly what was once taken away from them.
There were also church people, wearing their white collars and crosses. Some even walking hand in hand with residential school survivors. When the Reconciliation Walk proceeded past a church, the bells rang. It was an amazing sight to witness all this. I could hear the bells of the church ringing and a few people were pounding on hand drums as they walked in a large crowd.
A “blanket exercise” was conducted on Parliament Hill on Monday as part of the Learning Day, and was attended by nearly 100 people. Halfway through the exercise, the facilitator asked a jingle dancer to come out from the sidelines of the crowd. Aboriginal drummers did an honour song for all the residential school children who never came home. The jingle dancer danced not for the crowds that were there, but for the lost children. A healing moment.
Some of the closing events were held in scary churches. I say scary because they used to scare me as a child. One church was a vast space inside with colourful windows and wooden pews. The same musty smell. At the end of one church service, an indigenous drum group came down the aisle. As the beat of the drum echoed in the vast space of the church building, the little child in me awoke. I like to refer to my lost childhood as “the little child.” I sat there in the wooden pew and allowed my tears to flow. This was a powerfully healing moment for me. Afterwards I went up to thank the drummers. I told them I thought I would never live to hear the drum inside a church.
When the TRC commissioners released their findings and responses, there were tears shed by many of the residential school survivors in attendance because the words spoken triggered old memories. The pictures of residential school children and their schools were being broadcast on a large screen. It was an overwhelming moment.
Justice Murray Sinclair, one of the three commissioners, said, “We will act!” That was a strong statement. All of the events held during the week offered hope and healing for a better 
future for the indigenous community.
Still I am left wondering if all that was promised on that day will be delivered. I come from a past of broken promises. As a child, hoping my mom and dad will come back to pick me up. In a foster home, being told I will never have to move again. As a parent, we won’t take your child.
The TRC event provided healing moments. That’s what I will take with me. I am stronger for facing old memories, and for making new ones. The question now being asked is, what comes next? After the TRC moves away from front page news, what is the next step to moving towards reconciliation?
As one speaker said during the release of the report, this is a Canadian problem, not an Aboriginal problem. You have our stories, you saw our tears—both of which played out in the media. Private pain was on public display. As a residential school survivor, I would like to say, we have done our part.
