Leaving on a Jet Plane

Just the other day, I was reading an article in the newspaper about residential schools in BC.  During my undergrad studies at SFU, I remember reading literature about students who had attended these schools.  I had studied textbooks about their experiences, their indoctrination, and some of the social issues that have arisen from these institutions.  This newspaper article discussed how these Aboriginal children were educated in these residential schools and how many of them were lost.  Some of these children were forced to attend these schools.  Some of these parents were sold on the idea that their children would be getting a greater education. 

 

When these children went to school, they were to forget their language, their history and their parents. Sometimes, these children never made it back home to their parents and families.  It was the death of these children. It was the death of their culture. It breaks my heart because sometimes the parents would not know that their children had passed away during school until it was summer break and their child just never came back home. 

 

When I was a baby, my mother left me.  Luckily, I was so young, I do not have any recollection of being left behind. I do not have any conscious memory of being sad or having to suppress this painful experience deep inside me.  I only know this because my mother told me. 

 

When I was an infant, my parents made a courageous decision to leave their family and friends back home and come to Canada without any real plans other than to make a living and to raise a family in a beautiful and prosperous country.  But in order to get ahead, they decided it would be better for me to stay behind with my grandmother who was my “mother” for 6 months.  When it was time for me to come to Canada to join my parents, I came on an airplane as a barely 2 year old guest to a complete stranger whose task was to ensure that when we landed I was reunited with my parents. After arriving in Canada, I cried for months, looking for my grandmother, not recognizing my real mother.  Thirty-seven years later, my mother still weeps when she tells me this story. 

This story of being separated from my parents, these Aboriginal children being separated from their families and their homes rings deeper in my heart because I have two small children of my own.  The perspective suddenly shifts when I hear these stories as a parent because I couldn’t imagine living without my children.  As parents, we are torn to make decisions that we think might be for the greater good of our children. That is what makes these choices so painful, yet courageous.  I am thankful every day that my children are close and I can hold them tight.