Spílexm, page 6
All day my young auntie and I talk, we tease, we laugh, and we walk because we’re good at those things, just like we’re good at gathering berries. I am perturbed by her tummy pains so even when she tells me to go, I refuse to leave her. I’m thinking maybe she ate something bad. When we reach the river she says, “Let’s keep walking.” On the bridge she says, “Let’s walk to the hill.” At the hill she says, “Let’s go to the hospital.” If I could carry her I would, but she’s too big, so we walk and we talk and we laugh some more.
With each step down that long road, I worry for her, her belly enormous and round. I think of the ancients whose blood runs through our veins. Did they live in peace day to day, as they travelled through this valley? My mom walked this road many times, too. When my aunties and uncles were taken away to foster homes, she was a young girl just out of residential school. She didn’t want to lose touch with them. She would walk all the way into town from one house to the other and take them for visits.
Our ancestral Syílx, Nłeʔkepmx, and Athapaskan Grandmothers, pregnant mothers must have walked this path before us. Every realm of the “Nicola” Valley, every one of the ten thousand waterways, carries the shadows of their footsteps. Tmíxw, temxulaxw—this land—throbs with a cadence and pulse of generations of Indigenous women—mind, body, spirit intertwined with the spirits and life force of the land. A positioning-repositioning journey, walking as their unborn baby turns and shifts, prepares to travel the birth canal. Ancient mothers full of prayers for the tender spirits of their unborn and newly born. My auntie doesn’t know it yet, but she is surrounded by the loving embrace of our ancestral Grandmothers.
When we reach the emergency room entrance, the nurses take one long look at my aunt and escort her right in. “She’s in labour!” they say. Auntie is worried about me. She thinks I need a barf bag. Arms flailing, she moves on the birthing table as though to get one for me.
“As if!” I say, and she laughs out loud because she is strapped to the birthing table. Her laugh has a pain-filled pitch I’ve never heard before or since. Moments later, a baby girl comes singing her birthing song, coated in birthing waters. A newborn baby, her tiny voice pierces the white hospital walls. My first thought as I see her newborn perfection is wməm’iʔmeʔ p’éseʔ. Tiny and perfect hummingbird. This is my newborn cousin.
Things will get better. She is my strength and I am hers and we pay witness to each other’s growth. We struggle sometimes fall but we always get up again. It will take time and endurance, I know it will, but things WILL get better. As I walk down the white marbled floors through the long hospital hallway and exit through the front doors, I make a promise to myself.
I will never drink again.
Grandpa’s Corrals
Everything in the world is suddenly awake and growing. The fields are peppered with green. The brilliant shoots are discreet at first; silent and tiny they emerge, bursting through the grey, black, and brown shades of soil, sand, and clay. Saskatoon berry bushes and lilac bushes are blossoming white and fragrant purple, awakening the land with their beauty. If we listen carefully, we can hear the land singing wind songs that never end. They sing their blessings of beauty and strength throughout our entire valley. Scéxmxuyxw,
Syílx temxulaxw like a weaving we are intertwined/interconnected. As we drink from the ten thousand waterways that irrigate this valley, as we breathe our ancestors’ breath and walk in the shadows of our Grandmothers’ and Grandfathers’ footsteps. Until we return to tmíxw and our children walk in the trails we have broken. We know, there is no beginning, no end. We are a part of this spiral that keeps spinning.
Every morning, through my bedroom walls I hear the musical voice of my swóz, speaking Nłeʔkepmxcín on the telephone. If I listen closely, I catch words that I understand and I remember more and more. My swóz, my grandpa’s younger sister, has been teaching me Nłeʔkepmxcín every day. Through her kind, gentle love, the great lonely fissures in my heart are healing.
The horses raise clouds of dust as they run circles around Grandpa’s corrals. I watch them as I walk on tiptoe along the rotting, wooden cattle guard. Among the many dreams I’ve had of travelling trails through the mountains, I dreamt of a wagon and horses rolling along a long gravel road. Mountains on either side, it rolled past where my grand-uncle’s farm is now, leaving clouds of dust behind. At one time, there was a huge pine tree by the entrance to my swóz’s driveway. Over the years, so many vehicles crashed into it, the Department of Highways had it cut down. A huge stump remained, and people continued crashing into that until they finally removed the stump as well. The weird thing was that once the tree was completely removed, no one crashed there anymore.
“Hi Grandpa!” I call as I walk inside. Grandpa has a typical government house: blue exterior and blue interior, a blue front step, a blue kitchen, two blue bedrooms, and a big purple lilac bush right beside his front door. Nothing changes at Grandpa’s house. His old iron bed in the living room. His favourite slippers sitting by his bed. They are faded golden, curly-toed East Indian shoes that he got from an “East Indian fella” who didn’t have enough cash, back when Grandpa was the town bootlegger. That guy returned to get his shoes when he had money to pay, but Grandpa liked the shoes so much that he kept them. He wore those curly-toed shoes until my uncle claimed them. Then my uncle wore them everywhere, even to the rodeo grounds. Grandpa has a brand-new television with a wireless remote control. But today, he’s not watching TV. “Grandpa, are you home?” I holler extra loud.
Grandpa loves taking photographs and his walls are covered in photographs of family, especially from Indian rodeos. When Uncle made it to the Indian National Finals Rodeo for bull riding in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Grandpa bought a fancy 35-mm camera with a special telescope and a fast-action lens. His new camera could take photos in rapid succession, quickly catching a series of movements. Grandpa’s pride and joy, my champion bull rider uncle, was built like a brick house with rigid muscle all the way from his fingers and fists, forearms, straight to his ears. Enormous cowboy wings extended down from his triceps to his lumbar and a rock-solid abdominal core. He looked like a superhero when he was travelling the rodeo circuit, always hungry for his next ride: enormous bulls and wild bucking horses for saddle bronc and bareback. After Grandpa bought that camera, he was constantly taking action shots of everything in sight. Everyone would gather around and look at Grandpa’s newest shots; however, family favourites were always of Uncle.
“Hallo Sweetheart!” His voice, deep and cheery, calls from the kitchen. He honestly doesn’t know it’s me. He calls all of us girls “sweetheart.” I walk into the kitchen and take a good, long look at him.
“Grandpa! Oh, there you are!” His eyes light up when he sees me. My eyes narrow when I see what is in front of him. He has his fork in hand and a big slice of apple pie. “Where’d you get the apple pie?” Grandpa is type 2 diabetic and takes insulin to balance his blood sugar levels.
“Granny’s Kitchen.” He loves his apple pie, although he’s not supposed to eat things with too much sugar. There are pastry crumbs hanging off his whiskers.
“Ohh. Your favourite place, hey.” His jaw clicks as he chews. I grab us each a glass of water and sit at the table with him. I am uncertain whether I should address his obvious transgression. Usually it is my aunties that talk to him about his sugar intake. “Hey Grandpa, listen to this!” He pauses for a moment and looks at me. I move my jaw, open and closed as though to chew: click, click, click. “Did you hear that? My jaw clicks too!”
“Mm-hmm.” He pauses for a second and then has another bite. The crumbs are still dancing on the ends of his whiskers. I can’t take my eyes off them. I sit for a minute watching and then start tidying his kitchen. Stack newspapers and old lottery ticket notations, wipe his old blue wooden table and stove, and then gather up dirty dishes. My young auntie walks in and she pauses to take a good, long look too. Grandpa continues to eat his pie.
“Dad, you’re eating pie,” she frowns at him. Grandpa ignores her and keeps chewing. Grandpa definitely knows he’s eating apple pie, and he knows he’s diabetic. He just really loves his pie, so he continues eating and the crumbs continue dancing on his whiskers. Auntie stares at me, and I raise my shoulders in confusion. I am the picture of innocence. My silent thoughts say, I’m not his accomplice. Grandpa did this on his own. She shakes her head and mutters her concern over his blood sugar levels. She joins me in gathering up his dishes, wiping down his counters.
“Mackie, come wash my windows.” He gestures at me to come closer and hands me his eyeglasses.
“Okay, Grandpa.” I lean forward so he can see my face. “I’m not my mom.” Although I’m pretty sure he knows which granddaughter I am. Grandpa’s middle name is Mack and he always calls my mom “Mackie.”
“Oh…okay, Sweetheart.” He squints at me and keeps eating.
Living with my swóz is good because now I visit Grandpa almost every day. I tell him stories of what I’m up to or who I’ve seen. He nods and his response is always, “Oh. That’s good.” If my swóz has been baking, I bring him a piece of her fresh-baked apple pie. One day I notice that his face is shifting from side to side as he talks. As he eats, it doesn’t stop.
“Grandpa, why is your face shaky?” I ask, but he doesn’t seem to understand what I’m talking about.
I don’t know what to think about it, so I phone my young auntie because she lives right next door. When my young auntie walks in, she stands in the kitchen doorway and watches Grandpa. “Dad, what’s going on? Why is your face shaking?” She immediately calls the community health nurse.
Grandpa was having a stroke and had to go to the hospital by ambulance. I felt bad that I didn’t know the signs. I was sure glad my auntie arrived when she did. Though I observed the symptoms, I did not understand that they were the early signs of a stroke. After that, things changed. Due to his diabetes and his age, he couldn’t live alone anymore. Grandpa, always so independent, moved into a bachelor suite in a building for seniors in town. He could still leave anytime he wanted but had to be back by nine o’clock in the evening. He bought a motorized scooter and every day he would cruise to his favourite spots: Quilchena Square and Granny’s Kitchen.
I know I’m being a nuisance, but I keep dropping by to check on him almost every day. Sometimes I just want to look at him and make sure he’s okay. If it’s not me then it’s one of my aunties. In the morning, I cook him mush; after school, I make him dinner. We all take turns washing his dishes and cleaning his bathroom. Sometimes I just respect his need for quiet, and I don’t say anything at all. I clean, or I sit on the floor beside him when we watch television because he only has one chair. Sometimes, I sit and just listen to Grandpa breathe and watch him sleep.
People who remember her say my grandmother had a robust laugh. In pictures, she reminds me of my auntie. My grandmother was Syílx from Fish Lake. She had a brother and a sister living near Vernon, as well as several other siblings. Most of my grandmother’s siblings are gone too. I didn’t grow up knowing my grandmother’s family although I met a few of them at family and community events. It was always wonderful when my mom and aunties and uncles got to visit her brother, Grand-Uncle Edward and her sister, Grand-Auntie Elizabeth. Old-school grit, lanky and tall, Grand-Uncle Edward remained a strikingly handsome Syílx cowboy. As a fluent Nsyílxcn speaker he orated great stories and always magically captured everyone’s attention when he entered a room. My mom and all of her siblings must have been so sad when my grandma passed away.
My grandpa was proud to have fought on the front lines alongside his Canadian compatriots in World War II. Many Indigenous soldiers gave their lives fighting on the front lines for Canada. Like many others, he was treated as an equal overseas, but when he returned home, he faced racism. When Indigenous veterans returned, many were disenfranchised against their will, with no knowledge or understanding of the rights they had lost. That happened to my friend’s grandpa. To be disenfranchised meant that the government removed their Indian status and all the associated rights according to the Indian Act. After they were disenfranchised, the person no longer had the right to live on reserve or own land on reserve even if that person was a status Indian according to the Indian Act. This happened to a lot of Indigenous men returning from the war. Indigenous women, and their children, were disenfranchised if they married a non-status man, even if he was Indigenous. So, when my status mom married my Métis dad, she was disenfranchised.
The Canadian government’s laws for Indigenous people are terribly confusing. The Indian Act, as implemented by the government for us “Indians” has so many multi-tiered laws and policies for colonizing and policing every element of our existence. There was a time when being disenfranchised meant Indigenous people were no longer allowed onto their home reserves, even to visit family. If the government disenfranchised the father, this impacted his whole family. If a non-Indigenous woman, white or other, married a status man, that woman and even her non-Indigenous children from previous relationships gained full Indian status. This law changed in 1985. At that time, my mom and I regained our status. The Royal Proclamation of 1763 is said to have established rules and protocols determining our “rights and freedoms” as Indigenous people. Ensuring that as “Indians” we should not be “molested or disturbed,” and our rights to our land not abused. Yet across Canada, every inch of Indigenous land and waterways were stolen, molested, and disturbed as were Indigenous women and children, in conjunction with the decimation of our ancestors caused by colonial diseases. Indian reservations were created in locations that were deemed unworthy and uninhabitable by white euro-settlers. The Canadian government forcibly relocated many Indigenous communities across Canada to places with minimal to no accessible traditional resources that are critical to the abundant, healthy existence of the people, particularly clean drinking water, fishing, hunting, and the gathering of traditional foods and medicines.
I have heard stories about my grandpa when he came home from the war. At one point in his life, he was a violent man. Like my mom, both of my grandparents grew up in Indian Residential School. Grandpa was barely a young man when he went away and joined the Canadian Army. Then he came home and married my grandmother. Every single one of their nine children was taken away: the three oldest to St. George’s Indian Residential School and the six youngest into the foster care system.
During the prohibition, the production of alcohol became a source of revenue. Alcoholism became an addiction. For my grandparents, Loved Ones, community members, alcoholism was how they coped with sorrow, hurt, rage, unresolved trauma, and the deep, overwhelming sense of powerlessness that began when they were children stolen from the safe, loving arms of their family. Many of our Loved Ones carry lifelong hurt and despair that is generations old. As Indigenous people we carry the burden of our ancestors, but we also carry their strength. Their courage. Their resilience.
I am not exactly certain how old I was when Grandpa decided to stop drinking. He was diagnosed with diabetes, and he was the first person in our family to stop. He never drank again, and I truly believe that was the best gift he could have given to all of my aunts and uncles and to his grandchildren. He was a hard-working, tireless man, and he loved all of his descendants. I loved my grandpa for the person that he was for all of us grandchildren.
Learning to Heal
My young mom scheduled an appointment at the Indian Friendship Centre in town. Eighteen years old, I’ve been looking for work and I’m willing to travel. I considered looking for work in Merritt, but aside from working as a chambermaid again, there aren’t many options. I had a summer job at one hotel in Merritt when I was sixteen. The owner was gross and made passes at me when his wife wasn’t there. I quit after that. When we drove through Jasper on our way to Edmonton to visit my dad’s family, there were job postings stuck in store windows everywhere. Hotels, restaurants, cafés, ice cream stores, even the post office. I imagined that it would be an amazing adventure to move there for work. I had heard that the bigger hotels had staff houses for men and women. To wake up surrounded by the Rocky Mountains every morning, with herds of elk close by would be so cool. Change would be good. It’s hard living in Merritt because everyone still remembers when I used to drink. I remember too. And I don’t intend to drink ever again.
I walked past the Friendship Centre several times with only the yellow weeds paying witness to my stealth approach. First, eyeballing the office from the opposite side of the street, then being drawn closer by curiosity. I wanted to look in the windows. What solution would they have? Through the window I could see the receptionist sitting behind the desk. I felt nervous to enter through the glass doors.
“Hi, I have an appointment with a counsellor.” The coolness of the room was a relief from the heat outside.
“Okay, I’ll let her know you’re here.” The receptionist smiled. Seated on one of the brown, vinyl-upholstered seats, I read the posters on the walls. Images of Native youth and families all with Indigenous designs using red, yellow, black, and white, and pictures of animals: eagles, wolves, or whales. “Stop Smoking,” posters of skeletons and rotten lungs for the national strategy to stop cigarette smoking. I saw these posters in the Kamloops Indian Friendship Centre too. Along with the same stack of newspapers in the corner: Kahtou, Raven’s Eye, and Windspeaker, all Native newspapers.
“It takes a community to raise a child.” Some of my best childhood memories are in the homes of my old mom, my aunties, Elders, and grand-aunties. Everything always tastes better when it’s cooked with love: fresh baked bread, hamburger stew, fried bologna and rice, and of course, Red Rose tea with cream and lots of sugar.
I used to see a counsellor back at my high school in North Kamloops. I used to sit in his office. As much as I loved living with my grand-auntie, I had moved to Kamloops to finish grade eleven and twelve. Relocation was my solution for sobriety. My swóz made me want to become a better human being. I quit partying. I stopped drinking and moved away from old party friends and everyone who knew my favourite drinks. I wanted to change the direction of my life and graduate from high school.
