Day by Day

I am a drunk, a former drunk. Sober by faith. I admit I made mistakes with my children as a young mother. Even lost a child to Child and Family Services.

This was all after the days of residential school and many of us were self-destructive as adults. Struggling to find our way on a broken path created by past history. Lost parenting skills, disconnected from family, and various forms of substance abuse. Suicide. I fully understand that path.

Part of understanding the history of residential schools is what happened afterwards. The Presbyterian Church closed Cecilia Jeffrey Residential School in the early 1970s; but life became chaotic for me.

The family that I once knew was gone.

I was about eight or nine years old.

My parents drank; it was a series of foster homes or group homes for me and my siblings. I was made a ward of the court until I was 18. This was after a serious suicide attempt when I was just 14 years old.

I became a young mother in my early 20s. I was fortunate that my son’s father’s family helped me with my new baby. During that time I was drinking so heavily I was headed to an early grave. I met an aboriginal woman who helped get me into a treatment centre and I began the long road to daily sobriety.

I had my second child afterwards, but lost him to Child and Family Services. The never-ending cycle of disconnection wouldn’t end with me. I was struggling to become a good and sober mother. I was now a single parent.

I returned to my home community in Kenora, Ont., after living in Winnipeg for a couple of years. The desire to reconnect with my family was part of the reason to move back. My dad passed away and my mother stopped drinking. She was being a good grandmother. My mother loved taking my son blueberry picking and sharing her love of traditional foods with him. As my son got older, he loved listening to my mother talk in Ojibwa; he said it was comforting to him. My mother was giving my son a gift of the past—her language—which was nearly erased by residential schools.

By now my life was more stable and I returned to school to try to finish grade 12. I became involved in social issues. I even became involved in residential school issues in Kenora.

Anger at what happened to me as a child in residential school was what first motived me. Anger at the church for what it did to me. I was writing and speaking publicly about the issue. Awareness of the residential schools and the abuse that happened was just starting to become a focal point in my home community. The “bear” was starting to waken from its slumber. Many of us in Kenora and the surrounding area had attended residential school or knew family members who did.

This is only a brief history of what happened to me after being in residential school. I am still sober due to my faith. I reconnected with the child I lost to Child and Family Services when he was a young adult and he found me. Through my renewed relationship with my mother, I have gained a true appreciation and love for my Aboriginal culture. I have become a good mother through trial and error. Getting over my residential school past, as some people have told me, is not easy—something I continue to discover on a day-to-day basis.