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Leaving things behind

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Cancer is a scary experience. It will always sit with me. It’s changed how I am and how I approach things. It’s changed my body. It’s changed my mindset. It’s hard to keep up with it all. It’s also difficult to not be afraid that it will return. How does one leave behind the fear and anxiety of the possibility of death and the return of cancer.

When you get a diagnosis of cancer, it’s like getting kicked. You don’t really expect it even if you see the foot swinging. You anticipate the treatments. You wonder how all of it is going to affect you. You wonder about side effects and the future feels distant. Some people scream “fuck cancer” others become silent and still. Both ways of dealing with it have benefits and drawbacks.

Then if you are lucky enough to be told “you’re in remission” you are left with the question of now what. You’ve been so invested in fighting for your life that you now have to move forward and change that perspective.

Over the years I’ve had many conversations with friends about letting things go and living in the present. We have all shared advice with each other. There has been much wisdom shared, this is just some of it.

1. No matter what you do life changes, it brings change. You can either embrace it or run from it. Running doesn’t stop the change. It still happens, it’s better to figure out how to deal with it then let it happen to you.

2. If it’s not yours it’s not going to change.

3. The past is past, you had that experience. It taught you something, take the teaching and move forward.

4. You might be powerless in what happened, but you have power over how you react. Choose wisely.

So now that I sit here again with a recurrence of my cancer, I am again asking myself what now. I move forward, and I hope for a different future grateful for knowing more of what to expect and grateful for those people in my life who walk with me.

There’s a thread

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There’s a thread that runs through through me that connects me to the past. It joins my ancestors to me and defines who I am. This thread of golden light hits me and twists through connection. Wrapping me in the love that they had when they prayed for the future.

There is a thread that joins me, strong as it is. This thread is through song and ceremony. It’s made of golden light and connects my ancestral past to me. The light heals, the light sends love, and the golden thread of light keeps me connected. It reminds me that my ancestors prayed for me.

What I took with me to chemotherapy today.

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Today, I carried the love my children, my nosim, and husband have for me, it help me feel connected to all my reasons for healing.

Today, I carried my parents’ hope with me to remind me that I am always prayed for.

Today, I carried my brothers familys love for me, and it helped me to know it’s ok to feel sad because there are people there to pick me up.

Today, I carried my sisters with me when I went to chemo. I wore a ribbon skirt made by one. It brought the healing love that they freely give me. It reminded me to live life with ceremony, culture, and love.

Today, I carried with me my aunties and uncles prayers. These prayers and their love support all my family during difficult times.

Today, I carried with me my in-laws love and support for my family. I know they hold us close.

Today, I carried with me the love of my nieces and nephews. Their laughter and joy reminded me of life.

Today, I carried with me my friends comfort. This reminds me that I always have people to help me.

Today I brought ahkamēyimok with me. It is the feeling of perseverance, to not give up, and to keep going in spite of difficult times. I am grateful and blessed.

Kinanâskomitin

Do you see beauty?

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Do you see the beauty of the snow as it sparkles in the moonlight?

Do you see the beauty of the falling rain in the evening?

Do you feel the peace in the midnight fog?

When you are surrounded by beauty and peace do you know it’s there?

The lake calls to me

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The lake it calls me home. Waves breaking softly upon its shore. The birds singing in the trees near by. The warmth of the sun in the sky. The lake it calls me home.


The lake it calls me home, feeling peaceful in silence I sit. Meditating on the waves as they hit the shore; sounds all around of the water as it sings. Life is what the lake brings. The lake it calls me home.


The lake it calls me home, peaceful upon its shore; the birds and the animals that it brings. The lake is calling me home. Sunlight glistening brings me close to the peace and hope. Quiet as the lake sings. The lake is calling me home.

“We don’t say goodbye”

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Describe the last difficult “goodbye” you said.

I’ve always been told by my elders that we don’t say goodbye. We say see you later or we’ll see you again or see you soon. My understanding of this is because goodbye is final. Goodbye is what you say when you will no longer see a person.

There have been many times when it felt like I was never going to see a person or speak to them again. The last truly difficult goodbye was the last time I spoke to my cousin on the phone. He was in the hospital with covid. He was immunocompromised as he’d had a double lung transplant several years before.

When he got his new lungs, he was so grateful. He told me, “These lungs belonged to a young man, I’m going to live a life because of his gift.” He did. He and his girlfriend got married. They went places and most of all he went fishing. He loved fishing.

When he got sick with covid, he couldn’t have lots of visitors. He had his wife and my dad on his list. We talked a lot. He would send me photos of the treatments they gave him. Then he wasn’t getting better. The last time we talked on the phone when we were close to saying goodbye, I said “well we’d better say goodbye soon.” I didn’t even think about what I had just said to him, but he did. He said, “Ho, remember we don’t ever say goodbye. Don’t ever say goodbye. I’ll see you again.” “Yes, I forgot, ” was my reply. We talked a lot longer, and I told him my husband was taking me to Jasper for my 50th birthday and that I wasn’t sure what the cell service was going to be like. I told him I’d talk to him when I got back.

On my birthday my parents called me, they said that his wife had called and asked them to come to the city to be with them. My cousin passed away the next day. When my mum called me to tell me he had died, all I could think of was, “we don’t say goodbye, we never say goodbye, I’ll see you again.” On our hike that day, I walked to a beautiful spot, took a photo, put some tobacco, and prayed for him. When we buried him, it was hard. That was the last difficult goodbye.

“Tell me a story – Acimowin”

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“Tell me a story – Acimowin”
"Tell me a story"

History

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I am a survivor – yes, a survivor of history, a survivor of residential school. Though I did not attend, I was never the less there. I survived it. I was there, I was there before I was born.

This is not ancient history, a story, it is real and it is my history.

I survived the hurt, the anger, the fear – the tears – the sorrow – the betrayal of trust. A child’s trust, the loss of that innocence.

I survived. I survived the wicked behaviour called “discipline”. I survived the shame, humiliation, self-hatred and the loss. “You are nothing, you dirty Indian”

I survived the losses.
The loss of language, culture, history and pride.
THE LOSS, THE LOSS, THE LOSS!!!
The loss of safety, security, and the loss of family, for generations.

How can this be? How did I survive, you ask???

I did, I survived….
I am a survivor of my fathers pain and my Mosom’s shame. I am a survivor of the betrayal, two generations of “education”.

Yes, I did not go to residential school but my family did. My family was sentenced there. The terms were carried out over several generations, sentencing that carried a legacy, holding us, stealing life from us, slowing us, paining us.

It taught my family not just reading and writing. It taught shame, self-hatred and created the need to forget.
It taught my Mosom Self-loathing, it raised him up in foreign ways. It told him “remember your place” “say your prayers, you’ll go to hell” and it created shame, shame, shame.
It taught my father to forget. The only direction to turn – ANYTHING to help you forget. But it was not gone. It never leaves, it was ALWAYS there. It is always there.

It is there in the fear and the tears and the sorrow. It is there in the behaviours, the promises and the inter-generational sorrow. The trauma that still holds.

Yet I have survived. I walked into that building, feeling the fear, struggling to make myself go inside. I cried. I cried for those children who never left, whether that was through experience or death. I cried so that I could be free. I survived.

I will not let the former shame claim another generation. “I will be okay, we are okay” “TAPWE” this generation grows strong because I survived. My father and my Mosom lived and I am here in spite of the fear. I am a survivor of residential schools.

Tell me a story

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“Tell me a story “

This mixed media piece includes a telegram sent in 1888 from the Chief’s Alexander, Alexis and Michael telling John A MacDonald that their community members are starving and that they had to break the law and kill the cattle in order to save the lives of they and their children and includes parts of the responses from the government. This piece includes images of piles of bison bones and hides from when the bison were slaughtered to show the impact of the loss of an important resource to all plains peoples. The pictures also show the use of the railway to transport the bones to factories to make fertilizer.
The man painted over top has his head down in reflection as he contemplates the telling of our history.
The words of the telegram show through to demonstrate how the history of colonization continues to impact us. The past will always sit with us, and it is important that we remember and tell our own history. The inclusion of archival documents shows a record supporting oral traditions about the impact of signing treaties, the neglect of treaty obligations especially after the 1885 resistance, the loss of access to the land and the loss traditional food resources. It demonstrates the loss of autonomy through the need to ask permission to slaughter their cattle and that without asking permission, they had broken the law and were at risk of being arrested. It is called “Tell me a story” because we continue to speak about our past and the impacts it has had on our communities.

Transcriptions of archive RG10, Volume 3794, File 46,205

Telegram:
Feb 23, 1888
From Edmonton, NWT
Sir John A. MacDonald. We are starving. We cannot get help from the agency, have killed cattle on reserve to save our lives so far. We don’t want to kill anymore but will have to unless we get help at once. We don’t want to break the law but we and our children are dying of hunger. We ask for a commission to investigate the truth of what we are saying but need food at once.
Alexander, Chief of River Qui Barre
Michael Callioux, Chief of Sturgeon river reserve
Alexis, Chief of Lake St. Ann Reserve

At that time, it was illegal for Indigenous people to slaughter their cattle without permission. Even though the cattle had been given to the people as their own to encourage farming, the Indian agent and the government did not consider the cattle the property of the people it was given to. The file this is from includes other documents that explain why the Indian agent decided not to have them arrest for fear it would cause another uprising.

This piece also includes the responses from the governments Indian department to this situation.

Response 1
Feb 24, 1888
To Major de Balinhard Indian Agent
Edmonton, NWT
Chiefs Alexander and Michael telegraph Indians are starving, cannot get help from agency. Killed cattle to save lives, will have to kill more unless assisted at once. They and children dying of hunger need food
at once. Please write facts. See Chiefs and inform them that you have been communicated with by dept. This reply questions the validity of the statement they are starving.

Response 2
Edmonton Feb 25, 1888
Contractors behind delivery provisions, Saddle Lake, Edmonton, and Whitefish Indians were hungry, now fully rationed, Lac La Biche also now receiving rations. Starvation extreme word. Edmonton and St Ann’s complaining all winter of short supplies of rations, not sufficient. Hard winter for all, fur scare, fisheries a
failure, no rabbits, will find next two months more. Samuel, member and spiritual advisor, [is] working this up
[This response downplays the lack of ration, providing an explanation for the provisions not being provided. This treaty
has a clause that stated provisions would be provided in times of famine. It also states that one member is overreacting and getting everyone worked up. It seeks to invalidate the experience of starving people.]

Kiyas ago, our mosom and kokoms; our grandfathers and grandmothers, told us this. We were starving, and our children were dying. We couldn’t get any help from the Indian agent. The law said we could not kill our own cattle. Lots of our traditional food was gone. We thought that we would also be gone.