215

Last week, the bodies of 215 children were discovered in unmarked graves at the Kamloops Indian residential school. It was simply evidence of something that former students of that school had been claiming was there for years. I grieved when I heard the news, but I was not shocked.

Twitter can be a source of news, but it is often a cesspool of ignorance and anger. Many times words are written without thought. I read comments and reactions and am surprised that there are so many who claim to have never heard of the schools, let alone of the tragic history associated with them. But then, we don’t like to teach the parts of history that are embarrassing. We prefer the propaganda.

35 years ago, when I was in high school, we were not told of the residential schools either, or if we were, it was only glossed over, with certainly no mention of the rumours of abuse. We would have been taught that these places were good, and that they were necessary to help the ‘Indian’ assimilate into Canadian society. After all, several of the schools were still open when I was in high school. And lest anyone think this is a Canadian only problem, the United States had its own system of Indian boarding schools with the same goals – to make the Indian white.

And when the residential schools failed at their proclaimed goal, when the graduates became the drunks of skid row, we assumed it was their own fault. They didn’t try. We couldn’t conceive that they wouldn’t want to be like us.

We didn’t know. Or more accurately, we didn’t want to know. We complained about the special treatment natives received from the government. We hadn’t heard of PTSD, and even if we had, what did that have to do with boarding schools?

During the time of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission I began to learn a bit of the history, and hear stories of the survivors. This was my period of shock. I read the historical works of Mark Charles, Richard Twiss, and Thomas King. I read the fictional accounts of Richard Wagamese, and Michelle Good. I learned of PTSD, of the effects of having your children taken from you, or of being taking from everyone and everything you loved, of having whiteness literally beaten into you. Of attempts to escape, and when someone – a friend – was no longer there, not knowing if they were successful or… I learned of PITS (Perpetrator Induced Traumatic Stress) which drives denial, defensiveness, and secrecy. I learned of generational trauma which can be rooted in both PTSD and PITS.

I am stunned that with the methods used by the churches that ran the schools, that so many of the survivors truly picked up and have hung onto a belief in Jesus.

I saw apologies offered, some forced and trite, and some sincere. As I wrote above, when the 215 bodies were discovered last week, I wasn’t shocked, but I did grieve. I grieved for the bodies in the graves, the ones who never made it home. I grieved for the survivors, the siblings and cousins, many of whom would now be quite old. I grieved for any parents that might still be alive, and for those who died never knowing what happened. Many people have sought evidence for many years of what happened to their loved ones.

I look forward. Today there has been some thoughtful talk on what to do. Should they be exhumed, identified, and returned to their families for proper burial? Or should they be left, undisturbed and honoured? Only the families can make that decision. And right now there is massive support for the families and condemnation of the government and churches. This is valid, but how much will it disappear when something else becomes the issue of the day; when this is old news and people start to see what reparations will cost? True repentance is costly.

And I wonder if we are limited to what we can absorb. It’s only today that reporters have begun to mention the other 138 residential schools that were in operation at various times, and the hundreds, if not thousands of other bodies possibly lying in unmarked graves. What might be found on those properties if we start looking. This was surely not unique. The anecdotal evidence is there whether or not the physical evidence has been discovered.