Hard Week
It was a hard week this week. Not so much for me because I'm unfamiliar with all the circumstances, but it was hard to be amongst all those who felt so much pain.
Of course, there was the death of a community member. She is the mother of two of the students at the school. The school staff were asked to make refreshments for one of the four memorials before the funeral. I didn't know the deceased at all. I never met her before. I didn't even know her name before she died. I could only identify her children in the school. I decided to stay for the memorial that I made sandwiches for since I've never been to one before and because I felt it would be almost rude to drop off food and leave.
It was a hard thing to sit through. I almost cried a few times. It was hard to see people I know stand up and just breakdown when they tried to say something about her.
This may seem cold, but being at this memorial made me realize something. I never want a Christian memorial. Why? Some of the stuff the pastor said pissed me off. Here are the three children that are left behind, one in his early 20s, one who is around 14 and another who is around 12. They just lost their mom. Their birth father died 2 years ago (they have their step dad though). And the pastor is saying stuff like, you may think you know the pain of missing your mom now, but you don't. You can't begin to know what it's like to not have her touch you anymore, hug you anymore, tell you she's proud of you, etc. She went on like this for like two or three minutes. Her point is that "God" will help them get through the pain. I'm thinking, screw you lady. How dare you say things like this to them now. Their mother just died and these kids are devastated. If you ever looked in the eyes of a young person who just lost their beloved mother, you will see what real pain is. I almost wanted to stand up and tell her to shut up. Did she honestly think these were comforting words to the children right now?
I don't know. Maybe it was just an insensitive pastor. Or maybe this is the Christian way. Either way, I sure don't want anyone saying things like that at my memorial. In fact, I don't want a memorial ... let alone 4. I'd want a brief funeral where people can be as fucking sad as they want. Then, I want a party to celebrate my life. People can be sad here too, if they want, but I want people to tell crazy-assed stories about me and celebrate all the good moments they had with me. Death is just the tiniest, briefest moment of life. I don't want people dwelling on that one little aspect of my "life".
The funeral itself was on Thursday. This was the last day of the semester for the kids and the last day of my health class with this set of students. Well, since this is such a tight knit community, almost the entire town went to the funeral. Out of ten students in my last class, only one showed up. We finished the movie we started the day before. The next group I get is a grade 9 group. I'm a bit scared. This group happens to have the kid who's mom just died.
The settlement feast was also on Thursday. I attended this. This was my second settlement feast. Basically, a settlement feast is where the community gathers to witness gifts being given to the family and gifts the family wants to give. I stayed for the first three hours, but I couldn't stand to be there anymore so I left. This may have been frowned upon, I'm not sure. I hope I didn't piss off too many community members, but I guess I'll see in the future. But, hey, I can't please everyone.
The other hard part of the week was the pro-d day we had yesterday. The topic was residential schools. If you don't know what one is, I highly recommend you find out. Basically, in the mid 1800s the Canadian Government had this brilliant plan to deal with their "Indian Problem" of trying to gain land and assimilate the First Nation population. They made it law that they would forcibly take the people's children and ship them off to a far away schools and force them to learn the dominant, Euro-centric "culture". And the things they did to these children to get them to do this were atrocities. We only got a brief synopses of the things done to these children. They were not allowed to speak their native languages. Punishments included getting your mouth washed out with soap and needles through the tongue. The kids were forbidden to interact with their siblings. And then there were all the other things done to the children. The intense labour, the strict rules, the mental, physical, and sexual abuse of the children. The inadequate food. I could go on and on. This was all a form of genocide. In fact, when Canada adopted the Genocide Convention in 2000 , it left out 60% of it so that it would not be accused of committing genocide here.
Anyway, the main focus of out pro-d, way to discuss the impacts these school have had on us now. I was shocked to see how this strongly effects the entire community today. Besides the loss of language and culture that this community is trying so hard to gain back, the loss of basic humanness still impacts this community. Very few of the aboriginal school staff attended residential schools, but most of them had had parents, siblings, grandparents, aunties, and uncles who attended them. And the scars felt by these people are amazing. The loss of trust and the fear of love impacted the families. The ingrained fear of using the language has left these future generations mute. We now see the youth feeling awkward to practice their culture because their parents were too scared or forgot and were unable to teach them. The biggest obstacle is that no one wants to talk about it. It's almost taboo. I mentioned it to M's mom, and she said that the topic should just be left alone – that it opens to many wounds. But that was the whole point of our pro-d ... that it needs to b talked about to be healed.
I'm only hinting at what on yesterday, but it was very tough. People broke down, we were all quite somber. There is hope though. My biggest thought was that I wish the student's were there to see this. Some of my students have never heard of a residential school. They have no idea what happened to their relatives. Yet, I don't know if I'm someone who should be teaching them about it.
Of course, there was the death of a community member. She is the mother of two of the students at the school. The school staff were asked to make refreshments for one of the four memorials before the funeral. I didn't know the deceased at all. I never met her before. I didn't even know her name before she died. I could only identify her children in the school. I decided to stay for the memorial that I made sandwiches for since I've never been to one before and because I felt it would be almost rude to drop off food and leave.
It was a hard thing to sit through. I almost cried a few times. It was hard to see people I know stand up and just breakdown when they tried to say something about her.
This may seem cold, but being at this memorial made me realize something. I never want a Christian memorial. Why? Some of the stuff the pastor said pissed me off. Here are the three children that are left behind, one in his early 20s, one who is around 14 and another who is around 12. They just lost their mom. Their birth father died 2 years ago (they have their step dad though). And the pastor is saying stuff like, you may think you know the pain of missing your mom now, but you don't. You can't begin to know what it's like to not have her touch you anymore, hug you anymore, tell you she's proud of you, etc. She went on like this for like two or three minutes. Her point is that "God" will help them get through the pain. I'm thinking, screw you lady. How dare you say things like this to them now. Their mother just died and these kids are devastated. If you ever looked in the eyes of a young person who just lost their beloved mother, you will see what real pain is. I almost wanted to stand up and tell her to shut up. Did she honestly think these were comforting words to the children right now?
I don't know. Maybe it was just an insensitive pastor. Or maybe this is the Christian way. Either way, I sure don't want anyone saying things like that at my memorial. In fact, I don't want a memorial ... let alone 4. I'd want a brief funeral where people can be as fucking sad as they want. Then, I want a party to celebrate my life. People can be sad here too, if they want, but I want people to tell crazy-assed stories about me and celebrate all the good moments they had with me. Death is just the tiniest, briefest moment of life. I don't want people dwelling on that one little aspect of my "life".
The funeral itself was on Thursday. This was the last day of the semester for the kids and the last day of my health class with this set of students. Well, since this is such a tight knit community, almost the entire town went to the funeral. Out of ten students in my last class, only one showed up. We finished the movie we started the day before. The next group I get is a grade 9 group. I'm a bit scared. This group happens to have the kid who's mom just died.
The settlement feast was also on Thursday. I attended this. This was my second settlement feast. Basically, a settlement feast is where the community gathers to witness gifts being given to the family and gifts the family wants to give. I stayed for the first three hours, but I couldn't stand to be there anymore so I left. This may have been frowned upon, I'm not sure. I hope I didn't piss off too many community members, but I guess I'll see in the future. But, hey, I can't please everyone.
The other hard part of the week was the pro-d day we had yesterday. The topic was residential schools. If you don't know what one is, I highly recommend you find out. Basically, in the mid 1800s the Canadian Government had this brilliant plan to deal with their "Indian Problem" of trying to gain land and assimilate the First Nation population. They made it law that they would forcibly take the people's children and ship them off to a far away schools and force them to learn the dominant, Euro-centric "culture". And the things they did to these children to get them to do this were atrocities. We only got a brief synopses of the things done to these children. They were not allowed to speak their native languages. Punishments included getting your mouth washed out with soap and needles through the tongue. The kids were forbidden to interact with their siblings. And then there were all the other things done to the children. The intense labour, the strict rules, the mental, physical, and sexual abuse of the children. The inadequate food. I could go on and on. This was all a form of genocide. In fact, when Canada adopted the Genocide Convention in 2000 , it left out 60% of it so that it would not be accused of committing genocide here.
Anyway, the main focus of out pro-d, way to discuss the impacts these school have had on us now. I was shocked to see how this strongly effects the entire community today. Besides the loss of language and culture that this community is trying so hard to gain back, the loss of basic humanness still impacts this community. Very few of the aboriginal school staff attended residential schools, but most of them had had parents, siblings, grandparents, aunties, and uncles who attended them. And the scars felt by these people are amazing. The loss of trust and the fear of love impacted the families. The ingrained fear of using the language has left these future generations mute. We now see the youth feeling awkward to practice their culture because their parents were too scared or forgot and were unable to teach them. The biggest obstacle is that no one wants to talk about it. It's almost taboo. I mentioned it to M's mom, and she said that the topic should just be left alone – that it opens to many wounds. But that was the whole point of our pro-d ... that it needs to b talked about to be healed.
I'm only hinting at what on yesterday, but it was very tough. People broke down, we were all quite somber. There is hope though. My biggest thought was that I wish the student's were there to see this. Some of my students have never heard of a residential school. They have no idea what happened to their relatives. Yet, I don't know if I'm someone who should be teaching them about it.
posted by Small Town Teacher @ 9:59 AM
1 Comments:
At January 28, 2007 1:19 PM,
Toccata said…
I think what the pastor was alluding to is that right now they are in shock and right now the community is behind them. Unfortunately, he's right it will be down the road that the grief and the reality really sets in. Often, that hits about the time everyone else has moved on and they assume you should have too.
I don't know that God will be there to help those kids, hopefully. Personally, when my brother died is right around the time I decided the whole concept of a God was crap. But that's me. Two years later when my best friend died I was sure I was right about the whole non-God thing.
The whole residential school situation is such a bloody mess. I have to teach in a few minutes but I will try and email you later.
Take care, I am not surprised that your week was a difficult one and I certainly hope next week is a whole lot better.
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