sight_unseen
1. Adults are not to be trusted
2. Pain is not temporary
3. Selfishness and selflessness can overlap
4. Nobody truly sees children
5. Sleep is not restful
6. Reading can be like running away.
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Hope this finds you well,
-L
No country, state, or community should need a report that includes calls to action about buried missing children at the hands of the government, but here we are, Canada, and you refuse to listen.
Anybody saying that the 215 child deaths in Kamloops were an expected occurrence for that time period due to sanitation levels or TB is being ignorant. Know that prisoners were treated more respectfully than these innocent children.
I’ve heard people trying to rationalize it, knowing the last IRS closed in 1996. It’s not a dark chapter or history, it’s current trauma and lived experiences. Telling yourself that “surely by the time the 1990’s came around, atrocities weren’t being committed anymore” is cowardice.
We all need to do better. Don’t rely on your Indigenous friends or colleagues to educate you and do the hard work for you. Learn how to be an ally and amplify their voices, listen when they speak, hold our leaders accountable.
If you’re looking for actions aside from learning and educating yourself, or sharing on social media, you can donate to the Indian Residential School Survivor Society who provide counselling and healing for survivors at:
https://www.irsss.ca/donate
Better yet, support your community and neighbours by voting in politicians and supporting policies to do good work. Canada is a first-world country while its reserves and Indigenous communities are the equivalent to third-world countries. Many do not even have drinking water.
Many do not even have drinking water.
Time’s up, Canada. You’ve had the chance. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission gave you 94 actions to implement. Yes, even actions about missing murdered children.
From the TRC Calls to Action:
Missing Children and Burial Information
“71. We call upon all chief coroners and provincial vital statistics agencies that have not provided to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada their records on the deaths of Aboriginal children in the care of residential school authorities to make these documents available to the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation.
72. We call upon the federal government to allocate sufficient resources to the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation to allow it to develop and maintain the National Residential School Student Death Register established by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada.
73. We call upon the federal government to work with churches, Aboriginal communities, and former residential school students to establish and maintain an online registry of residential school cemeteries, including, where possible, plot maps showing the location of deceased residential school children.
74. We call upon the federal government to work with the churches and Aboriginal community leaders to inform the families of children who died at residential schools of the child’s burial location, and to respond to families’ wishes for appropriate commemoration ceremonies and markers, and reburial in home communities where requested.
75. We call upon the federal government to work with provincial, territorial, and municipal governments, churches, Aboriginal communities, former residential school students, and current landowners to develop and implement strategies and procedures for the ongoing identification, documentation, maintenance, commemoration, and protection of residential school cemeteries or other sites at which residential school children were buried. This is to include the provision of
appropriate memorial ceremonies and commemorative markers to honour the deceased children.
76. We call upon the parties engaged in the work of documenting, maintaining, commemorating, and protecting residential school cemeteries to adopt strategies in accordance with the following principles:
i. The Aboriginal community most affected shall lead the development of such strategies.
ii. Information shall be sought from residential school Survivors and other Knowledge Keepers in the development of such strategies.
iii. Aboriginal protocols shall be respected before any potentially invasive technical inspection and investigation of a cemetery site.”
This information is nothing new and can’t be brushed aside again. This conversation needs to be over, we need to move past conversation.
Canada loves to talk about diversity and welcome while blocking the door and hoping nobody looks under the rug.
(I say “you” but I mean “we”.)
Hope this finds you well,
-L
“You don’t owe anybody thinness” is what I keep repeating to myself every time I find myself sucking in my stomach or hunching my shoulders in public. After a million or so times it should sink in.
For good measure I try to follow this up with “It’s okay to take up space.”
How silly it is that we live in a world where we’re judged by the amount of space we take up to go about our daily lives and that somehow our value should be derived from how much or how little space we use.
Has anybody directly told me “You take up too much space”? No. Is that message present in marketing and clothing sizes and diet culture? Yes.
My favourite feature is my face, I like nothing about my size or about my body. To even myself, I’m only just a pretty face.
Hope this finds you well,
-L
I had to get this out somewhere.
At the moment, mandatory mask policies are in place for schools in Alberta but not for Saskatchewan. Neither province has put any more thought into returning back to school than that, unlike they did for bars and restaurants to reopen: no reduced class sizes, no increased staffing, no change in hours, no change in sanitation(other than a school in SK that decided to save money by decreasing janitorial hours during a global pandemic), and no attention paid to the disastrous school reopening currently happening in the states. There was a lot of consideration given to reopen the economy and the money-making businesses, schools don’t make money and weren’t given any extra funding to help enable physical distancing and cleanliness. It is sad that the students’ only protection is that which their parents can afford to send them from home. Not all families can afford the necessary PPE on top of already costly school supplies. The virus has disproportionately impacted those of lower socioeconomic standing and and BIPOC communities, this will play out at school too. Teachers are going to be essential frontline workers very soon and they get nothing but extra demands and expectations while the world around them has shifted. It can’t be “back to school as normal” if the rest of the world isn’t back to normal. Why should children be the ones left to forge ahead, unprotected by those elected to keep them safe?
This is my perspective, but I am not a parent. I am a healthcare provider.
Hope this finds you well,
-L
Dear Me,
So you are in love, real love. You love reading, texting, kissing, and crying. You love your family, you hate your family, you love your boyfriend, you hate yourself. You have recently discovered the world of dating, drinking, partying, and sex. You have four best friends, two divorced parents, one dog, one grandma, one brother, one sister. You are a Christian full of inner conflict. You are depressed and are struggling with life. Here is what I wish you would have known, wish you could have heard, and wish I could have told you.
When you drink and go out and kiss other boys while holding D’s hand, I would have asked you if that was really how you wanted to treat those who love you. I would have told you that being a designated driver has so many more pros on its list than drinking does. You can enjoy those warm summer nights through a clear lens, you can enjoy the company of a crowd, you can remember everything you said and did come Monday morning, you can be happy and celebrate without alcohol. I would have told you that you are worth being happy and sober.
When you spend time with D and feel like he is your whole world, I would have told you that you’re not wrong. I would have reminded you that as much as you love him and as much as he is your sun on cloudy days, you have a life outside of him. Don’t leave behind parts of yourself just to be in love. I would have asked you if how you treated him made you proud, and if it did, then tell him and show him what he means to you. Don’t let anyone tell you that you’re too young to know what love is, you’re not. I would have told you that you are worth being loved this much.
When you and D break up, I would have told you to be honest with him. I would have told you it’s okay to cry because if you don’t cry now, you’ll be crying for years. I would have told you it’s an all in or all out situation. Be together, or be apart. Being together, but apart didn’t work for you guys and it broke your heart over and over and over again. When you guys work on your long-distance relationship the most important thing is communication. Talk to him honestly, don’t use “I love you” to fill gaps in conversations.
When your mom hits you for the first time, know that it’s not your fault. I would have told you that she does love you and she will love you how she should later in life. I would have told you that you get to choose who you love and you are not responsible for the actions of others. You don’t deserve this, and this is not on your shoulders. You are right in not trusting her, you are a good judge of character.
When your dad tells you with venom in his words that you’re just like your mother after you stayed over to look after your drunk step-cousin, family in your eyes but suspicion in his, I would have told you that he’s projecting. I would have told you to wait it out and to stay. It’s okay to be hurt but realize that he’s not mad at you, not really.
When you feel like you have nobody in your corner, know that you do. Know that there are people who will go to bat for you. Know that your real friends will come later in life and they will make a world of difference- wait just one year and you’ll see. The world stretches beyond these two broken homes and beyond these two small towns.
Hope this finds you well,
-L
I’d be lonely.
Friends would become acquaintances.
People don’t actually care how you’re doing even though they ask.
It’s not cool to care.
Saying no is good for you.
Coping skills are important.
Anxiety is real.
Honesty isn’t valued.
Depression will talk to you.
Loneliness can drown you.
Forever doesn’t really mean forever.
Politics do matter.
You do get to choose your family.
People are selfish.
The loudest voices win.
Self-harm isn’t only one type of behaviour.
Cynicism is a defence mechanism.
Depression and anxiety cloud your judgement and make you believe lies are your only reality.
Hope this finds you well,
-L
Over the Christmas break, I finally had some time to spend with my grandma. I don’t spend as much time with her as I’d like to. My grandma is one of my very favourite people and we are quite close. She was chief babysitter for my siblings and I, we spent a large chunk of our time at her house- it was definitely our second home. One of our favourite things to do was to make “messes” in grandma’s kitchen. We would each wear the aprons grandma made for us, and she would let us add any ingredient we wanted to our bowls, and then we’d bake it. And I mean any ingredient- picture: coffee grounds, juice crystals, flour, salt, eggs, powdered milk, sprinkles, baking soda, sugar, crushed crackers, and baking powder, and any quantity of each. This would lead to funny-coloured miniature cakes that we then proceeded to foist upon our loving father, who suffered through many concoctions all the while telling his beaming children that they were delicious.
I still cook with this air of throwing things together much as I did then, whether this is due to my impatient nature or experience in grandma’s kitchen, I do not know. I can’t be bothered to measure ingredients, nor to follow a recipe. If I have something in mind I’ll turn to Pinterest, look at a couple recipes, and use pieces of each one to come up with my final dish. Have no fear, I don’t bake- too much preciseness is needed. I love to make casseroles, soups, and saucy dishes where give and take is totally acceptable.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve heard grandma talk about homemade cottage cheese perogies, called Wereneki(ver-REN-e-kah). Grandma comes from a Mennonite family and is fluent in Low German. She would make them, but since the kids didn’t like cottage cheese, we never tried them and she cooked store-bought perogies for us. Even though I never tried them, I was always curious.
Another way grandma kept us occupied at her house was by telling us stories from when she and grandpa were young or when they were our age; one grandma told us was about grandpa’s Aunt. She lived in her own home, at 104, the only concession to her age was having home care come in and lend a hand. When the home care lady stopped in one day, she asked Auntie what she’d had for dinner. Auntie replied that she’d had perogies. The home care lady asked where she’d bought them as she wasn’t satisfied with the ones she’d bought. Auntie scoffed at her and said that she didn’t buy them, she’d made them. So at 104 years old, Auntie had made perogies for her dinner and cleaned up after- all of which is no small chore. Grandpa’s family was English, but even they made homemade perogies.
I’d mentioned to my mom about how much I’d love to learn to make them. Now that I’m old enough to appreciate history and tradition, I wanted to spend more time with Grandma as I love learning from her. My grandma is now 87. She fell and broke her hip this past summer so she walks with a cane, she no longer lives in her farmhouse but lives in a granny suite built for her, attached to my mom’s house. She can’t see hardly anything and doesn’t drive herself. She has recently taken up knitting, which she hadn’t done in many years, claiming she can knit without having to see. She can’t read recipes anymore since the printing is notoriously small, so I knew she would appreciate the help and the lesson.
So one afternoon, mom had picked up the cottage cheese we needed from the city, and I came over to spend time, once again, in grandma’s kitchen. Once we’d mixed the filling and the ingredients for the dough could no longer be stirred with a spoon, it was time to get my hands dirty. As I began kneading the dough, grandma, mom, and I realized that I was already covered with flour and that there was going to be more flour involved. Grandma suggested an apron and went to the closet to get one. Mom went to her house and retrieved the one grandma had made for me more than a decade ago. The apron grandma came out with was her mother’s apron, my great-grandma Heppner’s. It was the classic blue gingham embroidered with flowers. She explained that even her brother wore it for many years to carve turkey for her family’s Christmas and Thanksgiving. I put it on, and when mom returned, she wore my apron since we were now working together. I was stretching and filling the dough circles and mom was rolling the dough and cutting circles.
The ones I made were a little misshapen but I’m sure that will improve with practice.
Traditionally, Wareneki are boiled and then served with farmer sausage and cream gravy. Once they were done we let them rest for a while and then threw them in the pot of boiling water. For the cream gravy, grandma soured some cream, we added black pepper, salt, and cooked it in a frying pan until it had thickened. Mom fried the farmer sausage, cooked some veggies, and we were done.
Before this, I hadn’t actually tried cottage cheese perogies because I don’t like cottage cheese. After spending all afternoon making them, the anticipation was too high so I couldn’t resist trying them. They were delicious! Now we’re planning a perogy making day for February break when we’re all home. My siblings are relatively picky eaters so we’ll also have other fillings besides the cottage cheese; this way we can spend time together and they can also learn.
I’m thinking I’ll make perogies quite often now that I know how- they aren’t too difficult and once you know how they really don’t take that much time. Some of the best perogies I’ve tried were filled with Saskatoon berries, so I’m excited to try some of those!
Another thing grandma made with the dry cottage cheese were cottage cheese pancakes called Glums Koki. You add eggs, flour, salt and pepper to make a batter and then fry until golden on both sides. Grandma eats hers with cracked black pepper on top, I prefer them with syrup and grandma thinks I’m a crazy person. I took home some leftover cottage cheese and gladly had these for supper the next day. Here’s the recipe:
Glums Koki
I know a fair bit about the history and traditions on my dad’s Swedish side, but not so many from my mom’s German side. This was one of my most favourite afternoons.
Hope this finds you well,
-L
Sight Unseen 