As he struggled one dreadful breath after another, by a miracle from community, an indigenous healer came, and helped his spirit go free.
And gave mine great ease as well. The grief i have held for maybe 17 years of this dreadful illness, he said, Sister let go your burden, as he brushed with life giving cedar.
A door opened and now i feel like i am floating between two planes. The daily world, and the other, a much more important world. mmmmmm
So all will take time to turn into words, if that is what my – our – gift presents to be done.
But that is not what i want to write about tonight on the eve of reconciliation day, year, decade, century.
We received that great blessing of the brushing ceremony because he is Metis.
So many of the stories from his childhood- his father giving pieces of land from.their dirt poor farm, bought by selling railway ties, to those who needed, his grandfather’s story around the wood stove of thunder as a big cart across the sky, his insistence, which i greeted with disbelief that “We don’t know when our family came to Canada”, these stories tell
Of course they didn’t.
I am convinced more than ever that his enormous family “forgot” they were metis because they wanted to keep.their kids safe from the residential schools. It explains why his father was angry and against him going to school.
So much fear and pain beyond words, to lose your family, to hide your roots.
And years later in another part of Canada, so much courage and grace, to survive those years and help one lost brother go back to the light, the Creator.
Gilakas’la
CaringCV 