I just want to make it better

I met my mom yesterday for lunch to celebrate her birthday. Lunch went fine but when we walked to her car, she started to get teary eyed. Thinking about the past. It’s hard to see her so sad and nostalgic and still wishing her parents had been there for her. Still a kid waiting to be hugged or fed or loved, a kid in the body of a woman getting another year older. I wished I could make it better, make her feel good about the world even though that’s not what was tattooed, branded into her little heart and soul when she was young and vulnerable. Now she is a cactus heart, and even though she is sad and lonely, all of her actions serve only to push people away. She reaches out, I try to pull her up, and she pushes back until she falls. People run from her, and I don’t blame them.

Today I was watching the Canadian government’s official apology to the Aboriginal people, and I started to imagine all these kids so lost and mistreated like my mom and her brothers. I saw them get teary eyed as the leaders read out their apologies. Thinking about the past. I understand their pain and their agony and their need for an apology. I understand that it hurts even for the generation that didn’t directly experience the horrors of residential schools. Saying I’m sorry means “No, you are not a piece of trash even though you were treated like one sometimes. You are worthy, I see it”. It takes generations to heal. I hope their time, her time, my time has come. I know it never comes so easily. We can only forgive, hang on to hope, and move forward. And breathe, always remember to breathe.