First Generation - Tumblr Posts

First Generation.

I am the first generation who hadn’t been to a Residential school.

This may be shocking but it’s a reality that I have to live with.

I am proud to not have lived through the horrors.

But I am also not proud of this fact as well because I have family members who had to live through it.

Because my grandmother and my father and many other family members when to Residential schools.

My heart is full of sorrow and resentment.

Sorrow for those who have gone to residential schools whether they have passed or are still alive.

Resentment towards those who presided over the residential schools.

I know that those who are responsible won’t say sorry because it was all in the past and that they never practiced such behaviour.

However, I’m the first generation to not go to a residential school.

And I am not the only one, but I am one of many who are the first generation who hasn’t attended a Residential school.

I am afraid that this fact will be overlooked because it may not seem important to people.

But there is nothing I can do, but accept the fact that this is my reality.

And I don’t want it to change but I want people to acknowledge that all this happened recently.

Let us not forget those who have been lost to Residential schools and those who have survived and those generations who are lucky to not experience the pain of Residential schools.

I dream of the lost.

Warning this talks about Residential schools and how I feel about the Canadian government and how I feel about how they have responded to Truth and Reconciliation.

I dream of those how have been lost. Lost for decades, in horrible places long forgotten by those today.

I don’t know why, but they always seem to be in my mind and my heart. It’s hard to admit that I have these dreams because it seems no one cares.

I see the faces of children crying out for help, crying to be found, crying to be remembered.

But I know that they fall on deaf ears. Their pain and their heartache is pushed aside and forgotten.

I feel their pain, it’s like a war is going on inside my head. I want to scream, I want to cry out.

“Why don't you remember us?”

“Why must you place us in the shadows of other tragedies?”

“Is it because of my skin?”

“Is it because of my culture?”

“Tell me, please just tell me?”

My heart feels heavy with woe and I know there is no cure.

Because of those people who have denied us. Who have denied the truth.

Many fail to reconcile with us and in turn, we can not heal from this generational pain, that has been put us in.

It is because of people who continue to deny the truth.

It’s one of the many reasons we cannot heal.

The other is the Government, which claims that they will reconcile.

But have they?

No, they haven’t they leave us and pretend that we do not have any problems but we do.

And no it's not just with Alcohol and drugs but with clean drinking water, and other basic needs that should be met.

But our Treaties and our desperate pleas go unanswered.

Why is this so?

Why are we forgotten?

I want to know but I know they have no answer that would satisfy me.

But the crying of the long-forgotten children keeps coming into my dreams.

I hear them and I see the tears in their eyes.

But I know their pleas with not be answered, for they are gone but to them, They are still alive and they are still suffering.

I know that it may seem crazy but I want them to have peace, for all children deserve to have peace.

It should not matter the colour of their skin that determines whether they are remembered or not.

We should remember all children, especially those who have never made it home.