A week ago, at this very time, I was standing with a family at the graveside of their beloved. We were a small gathering, in compliance with the regulations of the day. Monday afternoon I did the same thing with a different family. We call these spring burials. These two men had died in the winter and we were only now able to lay them to rest in the cemetery.
Each of these men was dearly loved and each family was filled with sorrow. The delayed burial meant that the grief they knew a few months ago was stirred up in the poignancy of the moment. The physical act of burial is the most difficult one a family must do. It is so real. So profound. So final.
As a minister I rely on words. Words are my wheelhouse. Words to express meaning. Words to explain feelings. Words to share thoughts. I read words. I type words. I speak words. Often when I stand with bereaved I realize the inadequacy of words. There are no words that fully capture the depth of emotion.
As I stood with each of these families I was moved, as I always am, by the intensity of grief. In each of these recent burials the man had lived to a good age. They had seen their children and their grandchildren reach adulthood. That fact did not diminish the sorrow. Loss through death is deep loss regardless of age.
This week I cannot shake the profound loss felt with the unearthing of 215 bodies of children at the Kamloops Residential School. Shame on our country. Shame on our churches. Shame on our politicians and leaders who devised such a plan. Shame on those who taught in the schools and tortured the children. Shame on those who turned a blind eye to the horrors that were inflicted on the children. Shame on the RCMP who insisted the children go. Shame. Shame. Shame. I can think of no other words. Words fail me to express the horror and feeling of abandonment that must have been felt by those poor children before and at the time of their death. I have no words to describe the feeling of absolute loss the parents and grandparents of those children must have felt when they did not return home from school. I have no words to describe the sickening feeling that must have arose as the bodies were unearthed. I have no words to explain the unending pain that residential schools have left as a scar across the generations of the Indigenous people who were subjected to residential schools.
No words. I carry the shame and I say I am sorry. These words are so inadequate but I can say nothing more that I am ashamed and I am sorry.
No words other than we must do better.
Truly Namce, the ‘discovery’ of that which was known not spoken, has unleashed more pain . And this is not the end of that pain. I have said that our granddaughter’s mother, the dear Angela did not ‘survive’ residential school…..she lived some years beyond it. I believe that is at root of why we lost her. And it turns out that in the early pages of the Truth and Reconciliation report I read that there was a residential school where our son John’s birth parents lived. A tiny town in northern Ontario, Sioux Lookout had a residential school. We live with a frequent reminder that the damage done lives on in the children and the children’s children. Inter Generational trauma is one of our granddaughter’s challenges and it is profound. Pray that with this round of pain, there will be the start of action dedicated to healing. Amen