2d • Daily Readings
The Little Girl ...
(September 25th entry from Honorary Indian Decolonized, available on Amazon.)
I can remember the moment so clearly, even though I couldn’t have been more than six or seven years of age. We were on the Couchiching First Nation in northern Ontario. It’s where my Great Aunt and Uncle lived, and my Great Aunt was THE only person on the entire PLANET who could treat my Mom like a kid and get away with it, and I LOVED IT! I loved everything about coming here. I didn’t have grandparents and we never had company at home, but here, even as a young child, I recognized the undeniable feeling of being among family and I liked it.
It was a beautiful summer afternoon, and the adults were chatting inside so I did what a typical six-year-old girl would do; I journeyed into the back yard to play among the dandelions growing healthy and strong on the lawn.
This was the age of the residential schools as many were still fully operational including the one built right on the Couchiching reserve. As an adult, I could not even fathom what it would have been like to be a child in that school, to be able to look out a window and see your aunt, your Mother in the back yard, and not be able to go to them. As a child, all I knew was this building was evil. It scared my Mom and you had to be pretty terrible to invoke fear in my Mother.
I played in the yard and suddenly I felt it. That unmistakable feeling that someone was watching me. I looked up at the school. There, in what I can only assume was a hallway window, was a little girl my age, looking out at me.
I don’t know who she was. I don’t know her name or her story. All I know is the overwhelming feeling of guilt that I felt at that moment. Guilt over the simple fact that somewhere, in some big building, in some far-off city, someone had decided that I could be with my Mom and she couldn’t. We stood there for an eternity, then she was gone, and all I could do was run inside and hug my Mom.
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The Little Girl ...
skool.com/relationship2reconciliation
Sandi Boucher has dedicated her life to Canadian/Indigenous reconciliation but the lessons apply to everyone so welcome!!
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